


Brand New Sky

by OceanCandy (PaddlingDingo), PaddlingDingo



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Background Margo/Josh, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Charlton backstory, Developing Relationship, Eliot and Margo will always find each other, Falling In Love, Friendship, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Past queliot, Post Fillory and Further, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 07:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 70,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23847274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaddlingDingo/pseuds/OceanCandy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaddlingDingo/pseuds/PaddlingDingo
Summary: Post S5E13 (Fillory and Further)Finding a way to Fillory seems impossible. But the impossible is what magicians do.Charlton tries to find himself and what this new life on Earth means, and how he fits into it. He finally looks and feels like himself, but he doesn’t know what his place in this world is.The isolation of Eliot not being with the rest of his friends is crushing, but sometimes the happy ending comes after the curtain closes. And sometimes, it means having some time to find oneself, to decide who you want to be, rather than who you think you should be.The key to finding the new Fillory is right in front of them, if they can find a way to use it before it’s too late. A journey to get to Fillory is exactly what Charlton and Eliot need, but it will require all the help their friends can give to get there, and they’ll need each other.
Relationships: Charlton/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 50
Kudos: 127





	1. Shout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlton forgets his inside voice. Eliot puts up a ward.

The sunlight streamed through the opening between the curtains, a beam of light that ran from the window to the other side of the bed. It crossed over Charlton’s legs, warming them, and he reveled in the feeling. He hadn’t gotten over how it felt to feel like himself, after so, so long. He didn’t know if he would ever get over it. It had only been a day since he first put it on, and a matter of an hour since he put it on in front of Eliot. He was torn between the feeling of something like being in the most comfortable clothing he could imagine, and one of restlessness.

His time in Hyman’s body had made him feel alone, uncomfortable. The few bright spots had been sitting in the Physical Kids’ Cottage with Eliot. Eliot, with his mix of pride and frustration at his students, pouring a drink at the end of a long day, but stopping before he’d had too many. Charlton had been around at Brakebills long enough to see the impact that Eliot left on the students, though. The way he could find that one student that put up so many walls, and find a way to get through. All the ways in which he made the lives of the students better.

Yet Charlton had also watched Eliot move through spaces as if he were looking for something, expecting someone. As if that front door would open and let through something that would break through the clouds. But the door never opened to reveal it.

Over a thousand years of not being touched, of not touching. It ached in him, that lingering fear that he’d never feel someone else’s skin against his own. That first kiss with Eliot, the first in so, so long. Feeling Eliot kiss him back, leaning in for the second kiss. And finally, the moment where they rested their foreheads against each other, relieved. Trusting.

It had been the quietest that either of their lives had been in a long time. The least painful. The lack of the life or death distractions they’d been dealing with before, though, gave their reality a new kind of pain, a new loneliness. Charlton had watched it in Eliot’s eyes, in the way he tried to cover it up with humor, or lapsing into a faraway expression. He waited for Eliot to choose to move into the professor’s quarters, but he stayed in the cottage, with all the memories that came with it. It made some sense, the number of times that everyone always walked through the door.

Staying here meant Eliot could be found.

He ran his fingers through Eliot’s dark hair, damp with sweat, wishing he knew what to say. How to say it. Eliot’s hand curled against Charlton’s chest, lost in thoughts that Charlton no longer was privy to. He’d worried that he’d miss that, miss the connection. Eliot’s touch was light, lazy, and reassured Charlton. He’d missed this, more than anything else that he’d missed about actually living. And being close to Eliot, feeling his body move with every breath… he wouldn’t trade this for anything else.

He found that the longer they spent as separate people, the better he felt. The memories that he’d shared with forced closeness had started to fade, as if his own mind didn’t have room for anything except to hold onto his own scattered memories. He remembered feelings, snippets, but not everything he’d seen. He held onto the memories that Eliot had shared with him, of his own choice. At the time, he hadn’t realized how unusual it was for Eliot to share things that were personal so openly, but now, he had an awareness of what it had taken for Eliot to open up to someone. Even if it was someone that only existed in his head at the time.

And he wasn’t sure he could ever let go of the look on Eliot’s face when he’d returned from his most shattering memory, when Quentin had offered him everything and Eliot hadn’t taken it. When he’d found the door and stepped out just long enough to let the others know he was alive.

Charlton didn’t feel jealousy, or envy. Rather, he shared that sadness, understood that it didn’t just go away. Now, he worried that he hadn’t given him the space he should have. How had he just thrown himself at Eliot, so suddenly? Riding high on the feeling of being himself again, of looking at Eliot through his own eyes, it had been overwhelming. The smell of him, the times they’d laid together in the dark when they’d been one, both alone and yet oddly not. The things they’d gone through to save the moon, to defeat the Dark King. The times Charlton had left Eliot to himself, not wanting to intrude on his own processing. He’d seen the way Eliot sometimes put his hand over his stomach, aware of the scars there. The flitting memories of Eliot’s pain, his loss. The look of someone who had been lost so many times that he wasn’t sure if he could be found again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pressing his lips to the top of Eliot’s head.

“For what?” Eliot’s fingers brushed over Charlton’s chest in a pattern that felt intricate, but likely seemed as normal as breathing for a magician like Eliot. “For fucking me senseless?” He let out a small laugh. “Never had anyone apologize for that. You’re lively for your age.”

Charlton blinked, a blush creeping into his face. He felt suddenly aware of his nudity, partially covered by the tangle of blankets. “No, not for…” He paused. “You meant it when you said that word is a chameleon.”

“It’s very versatile. Watch.” Eliot shifted onto his back, his head still on Charlton’s arm, and held his hands up in the air. “Fuck off, Hyman.” He made a series of squares and circles in the air. “See? Now I’ve warded him from watching.”

“That was an option?” Charlton felt his face flush further. “Although, not very sporting. He did let me have his body.” It sounded strange to say it out loud, but everything that had happened the last number of months sounded just as strange.

“He got the show. He doesn’t need the pillow talk.” Eliot sighed, closing his eyes. “And don’t apologize.”

“Fine.” Charlton let his hand drift down to rest along Eliot’s arm. It felt good, the touch. Not feeling so isolated. He’d missed touch, more than he’d known he had. It hadn’t just been the sex, although that had been amazing. A little clumsy on his part, trying to figure out having a body at the same time. And that he was here with Eliot, after watching him struggle so much and never being able to touch him, to reassure him. He trailed his fingers over Eliot’s skin. He’d forgotten how alive skin felt, the way muscles shifted and moved, the warmth. “I didn’t mean to put you under some kind of pressure.” He sighed. He didn’t know how to say it except to just say it. “It’s not a commitment. Just something to consider.”

“I know.” Eliot turned his head and Charlton could feel his breath against his skin. “You could have warned me.”

Charlton winced. “I don’t think my social skills are there currently. If they ever are.” Eliot’s hair tickled his arm. “I don’t want to put our friendship at risk.” He’d noticed that Eliot had relaxed, his skin warm against Charlton. All of his thoughts bubbled up in his head, and he kept them to himself for fear of pushing. _It doesn’t have to be anything_ _except this. I know it’s not fair that I know so much about you. But it was so much to feel like myself again. And I just couldn’t leave it there._

Eliot fell silent for so long that Charlton worried he’d misspoke, or worse, just said something out loud that he’d thought he hadn’t. It had happened before, where he’d forgotten to speak, or had spoken something that had been in his head. Having an actual mouth again had it’s challenges in addition to it’s… benefits. He felt his skin warm at the thought. Would it always be like this, with him aware of every thought about anything?

He waited in silence, knowing Eliot would speak when he was ready. Eliot sat up, moving to face Charlton. His eyes were tired, always so tired, dark circles under them. Charlton knew that Eliot was a restless sleeper.

“You know nearly everything about me.” Eliot’s eyes searched his face, reaching out his hand to take Charlton’s. “And you’re still here. Some day, you’ll tell me more about you.” He ran a finger over Charlton’s palm and Charlton’s fingers curled inwards, relaxed. “It feels good. Being here. It’s been a long time since I didn’t have to pretend about anything. It’s better having you out here.”

Charlton had been in Eliot’s head long enough to understand that he meant it, and noted that he didn’t deflect with sarcasm. “That’s unusually straightforward for you.”

“Would you rather I eviscerate you with a cutting jab?“

Charlton laughed, and the sound of it startled him. “No.” He nodded. “I’m good with leaving it at that.” He took a breath. He had so much he wanted to talk to Eliot about, but being here physically changed everything. He didn’t know how to pry, because he’d just known before.

If nothing else, he’d developed an instinct about Eliot while being in his head. Eliot would avoid what he didn’t want to confront, and Charlton felt like the hardest thing for Eliot to confront would be the loneliness, the isolation. Of everyone being gone. The memories that stuck with Charlton were the ones that he’d been with Eliot through, of Eliot and Margo waking during the time loop, always in constant contact when they woke up. The way that Eliot and Alice had finally hugged when they’d realized their shared pain. A scattering of memories of Quentin that Charlton felt relieved to have fading, because as beautiful as they were, they were Eliot’s and he didn’t have a right to them. To any of it.

What he’d taken away from it all, though, is that it seemed that Eliot needed the touch, the physical contact. Even more than that, he needed his friends. With Margo, Josh, Fen, and Alice gone to rebuild Fillory, hopefully in one piece, and Penny and Julia balancing the efforts to find them with raising their daughter, it left Eliot.

Alone. Separated from the kingdom that had been his, too. Charlton understood what alone felt like, and what losing everything felt like, but for him, it was far away from where and who he was now.

Eliot’s pain encompassed a deep understanding of what he’d had, who he cared for. And he kept going anyway, every day. It pulled at Charlton, caused an ache in him, too. The Fillory that had been Charlton’s home was gone, but a new one could exist. Fillory wasn’t just a place, but was also the people. They were a soul that endured. Charlton knew none of them, but they were still his people.

_We’re going to find them._

Eliot’s posture softened. “I hope so.”

Charlton bit off a curse.

“Your inside voice is your outside voice. Again. We’ll work on it, we don’t want people thinking you’re crazy or hearing voices. We’ve smoked all that kind of crazy already.” Eliot looked down at their joined hands. His fingers traced the lines of Charlton’s hand, and Charlton watched, fascinated.

“I feel like we’ll need Josh if we want to smoke anything.” Eliot’s touch made him more resolute, determined not only to reassure him, but to do everything he could to help. “I know we we’ll get back to them.”

Eliot still smiled but the sadness remained in his eyes. “I envy your optimism.” He looked back down at Charlton’s hand. “It’s interesting that the amulet gave you this much detail.”

Having hands again felt novel enough, but for them to have detail, details he’d almost forgotten until he’d had a reason to, seemed too much. Eliot’s touch was light, lazy.

It had been a long time since anyone had touched him like that. He felt himself shiver and looked up to see Eliot smiling.

“Everything feels different. Even breathing is sort of a strange thing.” He hummed a few notes from a song he remembered from a long time ago, letting the sound vibrate. “I wonder if I can still sing.” Laying a hand over his own chest, he felt it rise and fall. It felt different after the amulet. It felt like he was actually alive, something he never thought he’d be again.

“Oh I hope so. If we have to do another musical heist and you can’t sing, we’ll vote you off the island.”

Charlton opened his mouth to reply but then a shout sounded from somewhere downstairs. He looked over at the door, startled. Too much time never knowing what would happen had put him on edge, and he felt himself tense up. “What was that?”

Eliot let go of Charlton’s hand, getting up off the bed and pulling open the closet. He pulled out a dark blue robe and threw it onto Charlton’s lap, then pulled out a red one. He pulled it on, starting for the bedroom door. The material swirled as he turned back to look at Charlton. “It’s Penny.”

Charlton pulled on the borrowed robe and raced after Eliot, hoping for some good news.


	2. Under Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psychic babies are trouble. Charlton makes coffee that doesn’t suck. Julia is comfortably warm.

Eliot controlled his pace on the stairs, knowing that without a doubt he’d otherwise end up showing something he didn’t mean to. There was a time that he wouldn’t have cared, but this wasn’t that time. A part of him felt relieved to hear Penny yell from downstairs; he’d needed that moment, that break. Not from Charlton, but from the the thought that had arisen in the wake of their conversation.

Of course he wanted to have hope, but hope was a risk. A risk he’d taken so many times. He wanted to believe he’d see them all again. Especially Margo. He missed her endearing snipes and her hugs that seemed grudging but were all warmth, and he hadn’t gotten over her choosing to sacrifice herself so that he and Josh would survive. He felt that guilt for letting her go, for not realizing that she’d had no plan, no way out.

She had lived only because of Henry’s fast actions to save Julia and Hope. By tethering Hope to Penny, it had given him the ability to save Margo. If they’d lost her, he couldn’t imagine what would have happened to him. She was his Bambi. She’d lived, but she so easily couldn’t have. It would have broken him.

What was left of him, anyway.

He stopped partway down the stairs. What if this wasn’t good news? What if it were something worse? What if the unthinkable had happened? What if it was impossible to find them?

Charlton’s hand touched his shoulder, and Eliot reached up to take his hand as they continued down the stairs. It reminded him that they had, indeed, come this far. And Eliot was far from embarrassed or ashamed. He’d just banged a man that was over a thousand years old, from another world, which Eliot had been a king of. He supposed that at this point the odds were in his favor because magicians do the impossible all the time.

Charlton squeezed his hand and Eliot wondered how anyone who knew so much about him could still hold his hand. The touch felt better than he’d been able to admit to Charlton; just knowing that someone was willing to be there and accept him as he was meant more than he’d realized. Someone he honestly enjoyed spending time with, who had been a stabilizing presence, even if he didn’t know how to tell Charlton that.

But Charlton would already know. He knew how Eliot put up walls, and he knew that Eliot hurt. While his approach had been a bit strong, Eliot couldn’t fault that. He just wasn’t convinced that Charlton really knew what he was getting into. Sometimes he wasn’t sure if Charlton was brave, or extremely naïve. Perhaps a bit of both. If he thought about it, he supposed he wasn’t surprised. Charlton’s protectiveness made more sense. Eliot didn’t know what to think of it all yet, and he didn’t know the answer to Charlton’s question, if he’d be interested in him romantically. He didn’t know if he was ready to decide that. 

Julia stood at the bottom of the stairs, her smile radiant. Eliot couldn’t help it; he smiled, too. There had been a time when Julia hadn’t smiled, when Julia had been a ball of pain wrapped up in a demi-goddess enchilada. It felt good to see her. He hurried down the stairs, letting go of Charlton’s hand to put his arms around Julia.

Becoming a mother had resulted in Julia giving even stronger hugs than before, warmer. It’s as if she’d let go of the past and learned to live in the moment. Eliot held onto that feeling, onto her, her long brown waves of hair tickling his fingers as he held her. She hugged him back, her hands against his back, reassuring and strong. He closed his eyes. She felt warm like the sunlight through the window had been. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

They stayed in the embrace for a moment, and Eliot took strength in holding her. They were both so damaged over the years, yet somehow here. He’d take it. “Is this good news, then? Or are you smiling just to tease me?”

“Both?” Penny chimed in, pacing with Hope in a sling. She’d obviously grown in the time since he’d seen them last, when he started teaching a few months ago. Eliot wondered how long he’d be able to leverage her to travel. Some day, she’d be too big. _They grow up too fast._ The thought cause a pang somewhere inside of him.

Julia pulled back, her hands still on Eliot’s shoulders. “We’ll get to it.” She looked past him up the stairs, her smile wavering a moment. “I didn’t know you had company. We can come back if there’s a better time.”

Penny followed her gaze. “Charlton!” Penny grinned. “You’re you.”

“Santa’s gift, the bracelet. It turns the wearer into their true self.” Eliot looked up the stairs behind him, at Charlton with his hand resting on the railing, looking more at home on the stairs than he had a right to. His hair fell into his face, tousled, and he pushed it out of his face. Eliot noticed that Charlton moved differently, as if still feeling out his own old-new body with some caution. His movements were a contrast to what they’d been less than an hour ago, although Eliot supposed that sex after that many years would have him walking down the stairs carefully, too.

“It’s good to see you. Actually see you.” Julia waited for Charlton to reach the bottom of the stairs then hugged him. He looked startled, which Eliot had no doubt was the result of Charlton not having felt touch or affection in his own body in a long, long time. He put his arms around Julia and hugged her, his body relaxing after a moment.

They parted and Julia straightened the edge of the robe across Charlton’s chest. “A good color on you, too.”

“It’s Eliot’s,” Charlton admitted. “We… didn’t take the time to get dressed.”

“I don’t want to know.” Penny held up Hope, whose eyes lit up and she started laughing. “Baby here, keep it clean.”

“Because you’re so innocent.” Eliot rolled his eyes. “Besides, it’s just us here. And if you’ve got some news, my pants can wait.” He turned back to Julia. “Hit us with it.”

She had a piercing gaze, a way she looked right into someone. An ethereal beauty that lasted well past her time as a goddess. “Let’s sit down and go over it. It’s not a full solution yet, but we’ve got some good news to share.”

Charlton gestured to the table, then started for the kitchen. “I’ll make coffee.”

Penny groaned. “No offense, but last time your coffee was terrible. I’d rather drink Julia’s coffee.”

“Are you trying to die?” Eliot asked, looking from Penny to Julia. “There’s easier ways to get yourself killed.”

“He’s holding Hope, he knows he’s safe. But he can’t hold her forever.” Julia grinned, no malice in it, and started towards the table, taking a chair with her back facing the fireplace.

“Charlton has mastered coffee while you’ve been away,” Eliot pointed out, putting his hand on the back of a chair and turning back to look through the doorway. Charlton busied himself in the kitchen, moving with more hesitation than he had before putting on the bracelet.

The movements were the same, but also so different. He’d watched Charlton move through spaces when he’s still been in Eliot’s head, sitting in chairs, leaning against walls, but not being able to interact. He’d seen it sometimes in Charlton’s hands, how he’d reached for things and then stopped, realizing he couldn’t actually touch anything. Now, Charlton’s hands shook a little as he pulled down the mugs, but he steadied as he reached for the coffee. Charlton opened the bag of coffee and held it under his nose, breathing in.

A few minutes later they sat with mugs of coffee before them. Eliot’s coffee had a shot of whiskey in it, and he silently thanked Charlton for knowing that about him. The mug read ‘There is a good chance there is whiskey in this cup’. He stirred it telekinetically, the spoon swirling idly around as he regarded Julia across the table. “So what do you have?”

“It’s not much, but we wanted you to know as soon as we had anything.” She took a breath. “We found a spell to build a portal. From everything we’ve read, it should allow us to reestablish the clock as a means of traveling to Fillory. Or, anything else we may decide on.”

A feeling of hope shot through Eliot and he leaned forward. “When can we start?”

“That’s the hard part. We can’t. Not yet. The spell will anchor the bridge on both sides, but it requires two people closely enough linked that they can build it in unison, and we need something of the earth of Fillory here on earth. And something from here, there.”

Eliot held his back straighter, fidgeting in the robe. “Then what good does it do us now?” Eliot pushed his coffee away, losing the taste for it suddenly. He could just imagine Margo rolling her eyes. “There’s always a fucking catch.”

“Hey, it’s a start,” Penny noted firmly, rocking Hope. “We’ve tested the spell between two locations here. It works.”

Eliot sighed. “But we can’t make it work until we’ve been there.” That feeling of hope felt like it drained, leaving him with a lesser flavor of despair. He’d take the bitterness of Charlton’s old coffee over this feeling any day.

Charlton took a seat at the end of the table, taking a sip of his coffee and flinching. “I don’t know how you drink this. It still doesn’t taste good.”

“The same way we drink whiskey. With reckless abandon.” Eliot pulled the coffee back and took a swig from the mug. “Any thoughts as the resident Fillorian?”

“The Fillory I was connected to is gone,” Charlton noted. A sadness snuck into his voice that Eliot hadn’t noticed before. “I’d hoped that I’d have traveler abilities and be of more help.”

The Fillory that Charlton had known had been gone a long time, but now it was even more gone. Eliot reached out and put a hand on Charlton’s. It hadn’t occurred to him that Charlton could be mourning, too. He said so little about it. “It’ll happen or it won’t.”

Charlton pushed his lips together into a frown. “I need to figure it out so I can be of some good.” He shook his head. “I’m the last Fillorian left in your world, and there has to be something I can do with that.”

“Hey.” Penny walked over and put his hand on Charlton’s shoulder. “Let’s go outside and see if I can teach you a few things. It might be easier now that I can travel again. With Hope’s help.” He smiled and leaned over to kiss Julia on the cheek. “You and Eliot discuss the bridge, we’ll be outside after Charlton puts on clothes.”

“It’s not like no one’s seen a man in a robe outside this house,” Eliot pointed out.

“We won’t take that chance.” Penny laughed and took a seat next to Eliot while he waited.

Charlton stood, sliding his hand out from under Eliot’s. “I’m out of clean shirts.”

“Take something out of my closet. Just don’t get yourself stabbed or anything.”

“No stabbing. Got it.” Charlton started up the stairs, then stopped, looking back at Eliot. “Are you sure you don’t want to come help?”

“No. We’ll never get to the traveling lesson,” Penny warned.

“I wouldn’t say never. What’s a few hours, really?” Eliot looked down at Hope’s smiling face, her hands idly grasping at the edge of her sling. He reached out and put a finger out for her to grab onto. He remembered the boy he’d raised with Q, of the lifetime they’d spent together. The one Eliot had thrown away so carelessly. The baby that he would have had with Fen, who they never knew. Of Fray, who wasn’t his daughter in blood but who he’d tried for anyway. He’d never see her again, either.

The collective grief of it all threatened to steal his voice so he spoke before it could. “A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” Hope Quentin. A name full of promise, promise that she’d always be loved, even when things weren’t easy. That someday, she’d be the best of all of them, raised by parents and friends who understood themselves and the variability of life far more than any of their parents had.

Her tiny hand grasped his finger and her face lit up. “She likes you,” Penny pointed out.

“Of course she does. She has taste.” He peered down into her tiny face and wide eyes. “I’m sorry for scaring your mom.”

“You’re forgiven,” Julia noted. “So, this bridge spell.” She reached into a bag at her hip, pulling out some diapers to get at a folder tucked in along the side of the bag. She opened it and placed the two sheets of spell in front of him.

He spread them out and started to review them. The spell itself didn’t look complicated, although it would require more than the two magicians to keep the portal stable while they anchored it. If nothing else, knowing that they’d need something from this side to take to that side would be helpful if they did manage to get there from this side. “Margo and I could cast this in our sleep. If we can find her, and get some rocks or something.”

“We’ll find her,” Julia affirmed.

“You and Margo always find each other,” Charlton pointed out, coming back down the stairs. He now wore one of Eliot’s shirts and a black vest. A dark green button up shirt, and the color looked good on him. He paused on the stairs, looking uncertain.

Eliot froze, Hope’s tiny hand wrapped around his finger. Charlton had combed his hair out of his face, and he met Eliot’s eyes. He smiled.

Hope started laughing in joy while Eliot stared at Charlton and his smile. Psychic babies were trouble. “Oh,” he managed.

Charlton looked from Eliot down to the vest. He ran his hands down the front of it. “Is this fine?”

A little more than fine. “It looks good on you.” He’d been so used to Charlton in his mind with his old Fillorian clothing, or alternating between whatever shirts they’d dug up for him.

“Well, let’s see if your traveling can match your sense of raiding Eliot’s closet.” Penny started to stand and Eliot pulled his hand from Hope’s grasp.

“Keep these two out of trouble,” Eliot told her.

“There’s no chance of that with us,” Penny lamented, getting to his feet and heading for the door.

Eliot watched them leave, then turned back to Julia. “Have you had any leads at all on finding a connection to Fillory? Or even if…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, to ask. If the others were even alive.

“Nothing yet. But we’ll find something, or they will.” She sighed. “I wish they had a traveler with them. Getting here is easier than there.”

“Yes, well, that would have been convenient. Which never happens.” Eliot drank down the rest of his coffee, the whiskey burning down his throat to settle warm in his stomach. It fortified him as he reviewed the notes on the table.

A spoon fell somewhere in the distance, and Eliot sighed. Hyman.

“What was that?” Julia asked.

“I put up a ward against Hyman.” Eliot rolled his eyes and unraveled the ward. “You got to watch the sex, it doesn’t mean you get to see everything.” It’s not like Hyman hadn’t been watching everything for years. But opening up was hard enough without extra complications.

“Some things don’t change.” Julia reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “How are you actually doing, Eliot?”

“I’m fine. I teach. I drink coffee with whiskey in it. Today I banged Charlton, which was an upshot I never saw coming.” Eliot rubbed at his face. He hated to admit how much he’d missed being physically close to someone, and even better, someone he didn’t have to explain himself to. “He could go anywhere but he’s still here.”

“He cares, and doesn’t want to see you dealing with this alone. Same as me.” Her hands wrapped around his and he let her hold onto his hand as looked down at it. His traitorous hands, unable to cast without lasting harm, had stranded him here.

“I’m glad he’s here. I just don’t know if it’s good for him to be stuck in here with me so much.”

“Kady says he’s at the safe house a few times a week.” She smiled. “Penny and I have been talking about getting together with you, Charlton, Kady, and Plum. Interested? It might do you some good to get out, you could think of it as a date, with friends.”

A date. Was this dating now? It had been all of a few hours. “I’m in.” Eliot pulled his other hand up to place on Julia’s. “I hope he knows that I don’t know what I want now.”

“He’s been in your head, Eliot. I’m going to assume that he’s got a pretty good idea of where you’re at.”

Eliot nodded, closing his eyes. His friendship with Charlton had been something solid, and if it came with a side of a little more, well, Eliot had no reason to object. He had so few walls with Charlton, and a couple of years ago, that would have terrified him. Now, it felt like a place he could be himself while he tried to sort out what that even meant. “I just wish we were all in once place. I should have been there. I should have been traveling with them. I should have just cast anyway, fuck the hands.” He stretched his fingers, now perfect again. “Sometimes I hated Fillory but it wasn’t all bad. We had good parties, at least. I almost miss the fucking talking rabbits.” He made a face. “Danger! Rabid Wolves! Margo burn!”

Julia chuckled. “We’ll get there.”

Eliot looked at her, the waves of her hair, and felt suddenly grateful for her presence. They didn’t speak, just held each other’s hands, a strong and silent reminder that they couldn’t give up, like he and Alice had sang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is actually a shameless reference to a scene in Grosse Pointe Blank. Go 90s.


	3. Jump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old Fillorian learns new tricks. Eliot picks up pens.

Outside, a breeze blew through Brakebills, rustling the trees and catching his hair. Charlton had forgotten what that felt like, and for a moment he just stood there, listening, feeling. This was life. How it felt, what it was. Old memories resurfaced from somewhere in the depths of his mind and he let them. Did Earth have the same flowers as Fillory? The same foods? How many things had he missed enjoying as… him?

He and Eliot had theorized that nothing tasted or felt right in Hyman form because it was tainted by Hyman’s perceptions and ingrained physical reactions. He wished they’d talked about it more than they had, now. While Eliot had taken it at face value that Hyman was now Charlton, he hadn’t looked at Charlton the same. He talked to him, but it hadn’t felt like Eliot saw him. Most of Eliot seeing him in the hours since had been some amount of surprise, but he’d felt better when he’d walked down the stairs and seen the way Eliot had looked at him. Really seen him. He hadn’t dressed up for Eliot’s sake; he’d done it because he wanted to know what it felt like to move through this world like anyone else. He may never make it back to Fillory, and he was only surviving here because he’d learned so much about Earth from his time with Eliot.

What he wanted was to find out what all the food tasted like on Earth, but first things first. He needed to figure out if he could travel, if he had the abilities that he could need to help them get to Fillory. He missed out on saving Margo the first time, and if a chance to get Eliot back to her existed, he wouldn’t risk not knowing how to travel. He had to do this.

Charlton remembered everything he’d been told before, but Penny gave him an overview. They set a start point and an end point, marked out by lines in the stone outside. He knew conceptually what he had to do, but theory and practice didn’t mesh.

“Focus,” Penny said, one arm around Hope. “You’re here, and you need to imagine yourself there.”

“Maybe I don’t have a good enough imagination.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Not sure you could have stayed sane otherwise.”

Charlton froze at the wording. Sane. Had he, though? How sane had he been? He’d retreated into himself, losing track of who he was. He’d built the most plain and unassuming place he could for himself to hide, because it had no connection to the Monster. That didn’t sound like creativity so much as it sounded like desperation.

It wasn’t until he found himself in Eliot’s mind that he’d had the space to remember himself, and he’d had to be careful to not lose himself too far in Eliot’s memories that he couldn’t separate them from his own. Some days, having Eliot’s memories was comforting. Other times, it felt terrifying, being a part of something he couldn’t control, didn’t choose.

That, he couldn’t change.

What Charlton could change is what he did next.

He pictured himself there, in the place Penny indicated. He tried it with his eyes open. He tried it with his eyes closed. Five tries, putting all of his focus into that one singular point, and nothing. At this point, it felt like he would only give himself a headache. He ran his hands through his hair.

Penny paused, looking at him. “Your tattoos aren’t visible,” Penny noted, picking up his hand and running his finger over where the tattoos had been before he’d put on the bracelet. “Maybe there’s something with your perception that’s still blocking you. You’re thinking of yourself as Charlton, but not as a traveler.”

“Am I?” He thought about it. What Penny said made sense. Before, he couldn’t travel because he’d been panicking with the pressure, but now, was it because he didn’t believe he could? “The tattoos should only matter for taking someone else, right?”

“Yes, but it’s a matter of your mindset. You’re not aware that you’re a traveler, much less that you should have the tattoos.” He held out a hand. “Let me show you something.”

Charlton put his hand in Penny’s and the world flicked out of existence then back. He stumbled on a bit of uneven ground. He couldn’t breathe for a moment, until he found his footing and looked at Penny. The traveller smiled. Hope hadn’t even woken up from the nap she’d started while Charlton had tried to learn to travel at Brakebills.

Penny let go of his hand and stepped back. “This is where I like to take my students.”

Charlton turned and found himself with an expansive view, and he held his breath, slowly letting it out as he took it all in. It felt dizzying, overwhelming, and he realized that he hadn’t been in this much open space in over a thousand years. His legs wobbled and he leaned against a rock, closing his eyes for a moment and remembering that he was safe. _It’s just a place. It can’t hurt me._ It didn’t calm his stomach, but he forced himself to breathe again.

He opened his eyes and the valley stretched out in front of him, reminding him how little of anything he’d really seen for someone that had existed as long as he had. “I haven’t seen anything like this in as long as I can remember.”

“I figured you’d appreciate it.” He gestured at the rock, indicating that Charlton to sit down. “I’m going to tell you the hardest part of traveling. It’s that you need to believe in it. There’s only three routes we go. We believe it and we become good at what we do, and we live.” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “We get a tattoo to keep us from traveling, and we give it up. Or we don’t believe, we don’t get good. And that’s the shit I don’t want to have happen to you.”

Charlton sat on the rock and it’s sun-warmed surface lent it’s heat to him. It seeped into him, warming him to the core. He wondered how it would feel to lay across a whole warm, flat rock. He followed a line in the rock with his fingers to distract himself from the dizzying view. “What happens?”

“If you’re lucky, it’s fast. But you travel wrong, you end up inside of a rock. Or you have a nightmare or dream and end up where you’re thinking about. The bottom of the ocean, for example. Or a volcano.”

“I don’t want that,” Charlton said quickly, the thought making him ill. His nightmares were all Fillory, which wasn’t there any longer. He didn’t know where he’d end up. “But I can’t give up on it. If there’s a chance of getting us to the new Fillory, I have to try.”

“You have to open yourself up.” Penny’s eyes widened. “I have an idea. Come on.” He grabbed Charlton’s hand and they landed in a building that Charlton presumed was back at Brakebills.

The sudden transition caused him to stagger and he leaned against a wall to steady himself. “I wasn’t done looking,” he muttered.

“Motivation to learn to get there on your own.” Penny held up a hand to Charlton’s forehead. “Travelers learn to ward themselves, to keep physic interference out. You haven’t felt any other voices or others thoughts, have you?”

“No.” The silence in his head had felt deafening, but that had been after spending so much time always hearing some part of Eliot. He tried to listen for something, but heard nothing but the usual sounds of students and the wind in the trees. “Nothing.”

“You’re holding Hyman’s wards still.” Penny nodded. “Okay. I’m going to show you how to build your own ward, but we have to be somewhere with existing wards so we can do this cleanly. We’re is the Consciousness Building,” Penny explained, scanning a list of rooms posted to the wall. “I’m going to see what I can do, but eventually you need to be enrolled as a student, if we’re going to keep doing this officially.”

Charlton breathed a sigh of relief. That much, he could reassure Penny about. “I’m sort of enrolled.”

“How do you become… sort of enrolled?”

There were a scattering of mirrors on the wall, no doubt there for some magical purpose, and Charlton stared at his reflection for a moment as he spoke. “Eliot and I knew there was a possibility that I’d have at least some of the same abilities as Hyman, so I went through the admissions process.” Hearing his own voice as he watched his face move felt strange. He ran his hands through his hair to straighten it. He’d forgotten little details about his own face, but now that he had them in front of him, he wondered how he’d ever forgotten. “My application was accepted conditionally.” He flinched, the conditions reminding him of how he’d gotten to this point. “I could do magic in Fillory, but it’s a long time ago. Since I’ve been here, I haven’t shown any magical ability. My condition for entry is to show some potential.”

“And you haven’t yet.” He pointed to a room. “This one is free, let’s go.”

He lead Charlton down the hallway, explaining as he went. “Fogg must have known you were carrying Hyman’s wards, so why not do something about it?”

Charlton bit back the reply he was thinking: that no one wanted to deal with a Fillorian transplant in the pervert ghost’s body. But even more so, it’s not like Brakebills was full of traveler professors. “If I had to guess, there’s not a lot of people to teach. Magic is hard enough right now without throwing whatever I am into the works.”

“Traveler classes start back up in the fall,” Penny muttered. “There’s no way I’m getting out of that contract.”

“That’s about what Fogg said.” Charlton followed Penny to a classroom down the hall, waiting while Penny closed and warded the door behind them.

“I’m going to take the ward off of you, but I need your consent.” Penny searched his face. “Do I have it?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Charlton leaned against a desk, a feeling of worry starting to fill him. He had no idea what this would actually entail or how it would feel. “Is it going to hurt?”

“No, but there’s a chance you’ll catch some stray thoughts after I pull it. We normally don’t do this, but I can’t teach you how to build the ward if you’ve got one up. Ready?”

Charlton didn’t feel ready, for any of this, but he nodded. Penny’s hands moved definitively, firmly, then he touched Charlton’s forehead. He heard felt a buzz in his head and then the faint sounds of… something. More like a feeling than a sound.

_What you’re hearing is us,_ Penny said, but his mouth didn’t move.

“Fuck!” Charlton stared at Penny’s face. “Is that what will happen if I don’t have wards?”

“Yes. Which is why we’re going to rebuild them on your terms. Watch my hands.” _And feel what I do._

Charlton held his hands up and started mimicking Penny’s motions, finishing with touching his forehead, but nothing happened. Frowning, he ran through it in his head again. Penny waited, rocking Hope, and Charlton ran through the motions again. Everything faded back to it’s previous level of quiet. “Was that it?”

“Good job, you funky ancient Fillorian.” Penny adjusted the sling and looked around the room. “Let’s try the jump again.” He moved across the room and drew a circle, then stepped back. “Go.”

Charlton put all of his attention on the circle and focused. Nothing happened. “What is it that I’m actually doing when I do this?”

“You’re completely removing yourself from-“ Penny stopped, and Charlton imagined that it had everything to do with the look on his face. “You know, let’s skip that part for now.”

“That’s something that you tell someone when you think they won’t be happy about the answer.” Charlton ran through all of the ways he could possibly jump. Eyes open, eyes closed, squinting in irritation… His pulse only felt faster, no matter how he tried to do it. He paced between the start point and the circle, then back, as if walking it would show him the answer.

Penny glanced at his watch. “Hope is going to wake up and tell us how it’s going to be soon, so let’s give it one more shot.” He regarded Charlton. “You’re overthinking it. You have to find your center. It’s sort of like a happy place. Let that calm you and then try again.”

“Happy place.” Charlton smiled, remembering what Eliot had said about the cottage. “Happy place. Got it.” He closed his eyes and thought about the cottage, a place that had been safe regardless of what happened outside. Happy place, he could do happy place.

Then the ground disappeared under him, and he landed hard on his back, staring up at a ceiling that was certainly not in the Consciousness Building. He could hear chairs scraping back and a strangled “what the fuck” which he realized… was Eliot.

He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and reached out to find the edge of the couch. He’d done it. He’d jumped to the Physical Kids’ Cottage. Grinning, he tried to sit up but ended up dizzy and fell back, his head landing hard into a pillow. “Yes!” He didn’t know if he should be exhilarated or terrified, and determined that it could be a bit of both. Taking a breath to steady himself, he let himself fall limp on the couch. He’d done it.

Penny appeared, standing above him and staring down, a huge grin on his face. He reached a hand down to help him up. “Fuck yeah! I mean, you missed the target, but you’re not inside of a wall so that’s a partial success.”

He took Penny’s hand and let himself be pulled into a sitting position, feeling himself slump over. That had taken a lot more out of him than he’d expected, and he wondered how Penny did it over and over again.

“Penny’s definition of success is low,” Eliot declared, pushing past Penny to sit on the couch next to Charlton. “Fifth rule of magic, don’t do it when you’ve only had alcohol. Are you okay?”

“You just made that up, because I know you’ve done it all the time.” Penny said as Julia came up and took Hope from Penny, cradling her in her arms.

“You’re all in timeout now, I have the baby.” She took a seat on the next couch over, kissing Hope on the top of her head.

“Charlton doesn’t have our practice at doing everything while hungry or drunk.” Eliot moved his hands in the air and brought a glass and a pitcher of water to them. Eliot grabbed the floating items and poured the water into the glass, handing it to Charlton. “It’s not vodka. This time.”

Charlton took the water from Eliot and gulped it down, grateful. Eliot put a hand on his back. “You jumped from outside?”

Penny shook his head, taking a seat next to Julia. “Nah, jumped from the Consciousness Building.” He looked over at Charlton. “Although let’s not do that again, you need to stick to line of sight, and don’t attempt this unless you’re under supervision.”

“Well shit. You’re just full of surprises today, Charlton.” Eliot pulled his hand back and got to his feet, heading back to the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a plate of crackers and cheese. “It’s not much but it’s not shitty cheese.”

Charlton eyed the plate, lifting his hand to take it from Eliot. His hand shook and Eliot pulled the plate away and sat down next to him.

“If you drop it on the floor, you’re eating it anyway.” Eliot held the plate out and Charlton reached out to take a piece of cheese and a cracker.

Cheese was one of the foods that Hyman hadn’t said good things about, for a number of reasons that Charlton didn’t want to revisit. Charlton liked it, though, and hadn’t had this kind of cheese before. He’d eaten some food the day before when he’d first tried on the bracelet, to see how it would taste, but Kady had ensured he hadn’t overdone it. Otherwise he probably would have cleared out her whole fridge. 

He sniffed at it. “Smells different,” he noted, then shoved the entire cracker and slice into his mouth at once. The cheese had little flecks of something peppery in it, but not in a way that was bad. The flavor filled his mouth and he reached for another cracker and cheese. “This is fucking really good,” he said, his mouth still full of the last cracker.

Eliot winced. “Ok well, it’s close enough. Be civilized.”

“And with that, we should probably get out of here.” Julia got to her feet. “I left a copy of the bridge spell on the table if you want to study it. We’re going to go get some rest and go visit Kady.”

Charlton hastily swallowed, reaching for the water with more steady hands. “I think I’m going to… not do magic until I’ve had more water.”

“And we’ll find you some real food,” Eliot finished.

“Now that I can enjoy food that Hyman objects to,” Charlton added.

An entire cup of pens spilled to the floor.

“Not it,” Penny said, and they disappeared.

Charlton winced. “Is he mad about the ward?” He knew how it felt to be cut off from the rest of the world, to have no way to interact with it. Only being able to watch. It had been what Hyman had wanted, but at the same time, having no control over everything happening had been frustrating for him. He wondered if it was the same for Hyman. Maybe if he figured out how to travel, he could also astral project at some point and actually talk with Hyman.

He started to get up to pick up the pens, but Eliot put a hand on his shoulder. “Eat the crackers. I’ve got this.”

Eliot’s hands moved in the air and the cup lifted up, setting itself on the table it had been on. One by one, the pens followed it’s lead, dropping into the cup. Charlton watched, fascinated at the smoothness of every movement. He knew that the magic he had potential for was very, very different, but he hoped that he’d get some comfort with it.

“You’re really good at that.”

“I have a lot to work with.” He looked over at Charlton. “I had a feeling you had it in you.”

Something like pride swelled in him and he smiled. “You did?”

Eliot nodded. “If you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d tell you magic comes from pain. In the years in between, I’ve learned it’s… more complicated.” Eliot sighed, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. “I get feelings about people. You have your share of pain, but you carry it better than many. That helps.” He turned his head to look at Charlton. “And you don’t need to figure it out alone.”

Charlton had never thought of it that way, and he looked at Eliot’s hands which had finally stilled. Eliot was capable of amazing magic, and if he felt that’s where he drew it from... well, it would explain a lot. How Eliot poured so much into everything, how he’d been able to save the moon. It reminded Charlton that Eliot had saved the moon and only they’d ever know. Someone, somewhere, should know. Someone should write a song about it. But if nothing else, he’d always know. Eliot wasn’t alone, either.


	4. Queen of Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot shuffles cards. Charlton steps on a pizza.
> 
> Or: the message that Eliot has been waiting for arrives, as he makes a crucial decision.

_You’re broken like me._ Eliot couldn’t help the thought. Charlton had taken a back seat to the monster for around a thousand years. It had to have taken it’s toll.

Charlton’s eyebrows raised; Eliot had missed how expressive Charlton’s face could be. “I’ve certainly had my share of bad things, but I don’t think of myself as in pain.” He looked up from Eliot’s hands to his face. “I know you think that you’re some sort of mess, but I survived because your mind is a more beautiful place than you give it credit.”

“I probably made it worse.” Eliot picked up the pitcher of water and refilled the glass in front of Charlton. He didn’t know how to react to someone calling the nightmare ridden hellscape of his mind for anything but what it was. “How did you get by without losing your mind?”

“It wasn’t the same for me as it was for you. It was a long time, but time felt different.” Charlton picked up the glass but didn’t drink out of it. “And the parts I’d see weren’t the psychological torture of everyone I cared about.” He looked down and away, then his eyes shifted to fix on Eliot, infuriatingly thoughtful. “I think I’m so stable now because I was in your head. You’re brilliant, you solve complex problems, you love people so much but you hold it all in.” He sipped out of the glass and set it back on the table, changing his position on the couch so that he was facing Eliot.

“I am pretty brilliant, but I think your frame of reference is flawed.” At least someone thought he wasn’t completely broken. After Q, he hadn’t been sure that was possible. Even Q must have known, deep down. But Q was broken in a lot of ways, too.

Charlton leaned back, looking far more comfortable on the couch than Eliot had thought he could. “It absolutely could be flawed. That doesn’t make me wrong.”

“You, Charlton, clearly need something more to eat because you’re making no sense.” Eliot put a hand on Charlton’s knee. He hated to change the topic, but the sooner Charlton adjusted to a normal routine, a normal life, the better. A normal life was not dwelling on living in Eliot’s head. “So, tell me what happened with the traveling.” He remembered how everyone had put pressure on Charlton to try to get him to make the jump, how hard it had been. He’d wanted to protect Charlton, given that he’d already been through so much. Suddenly having any body was confusing enough without pressuring him to potentially kill himself with a jump.

Charlton’s face lit up. “I’ve had Hyman’s wards the whole time. That’s why I couldn’t jump.”

“Oh!” Eliot snapped his fingers. That made sense, and he didn’t know how he didn’t see it before. “You couldn’t see your destination because you were psychically locked.” He inspected the new ward, placing his hand on Charlton’s temple. “I’m not an expert on psychic wards, but this feels solid.” He brushed a finger from Charlton’s temple down his cheek, lingering by the corner of his mouth. He had a lovely jawline, which he hadn’t noticed before. Charlton leaned into the touch, and Eliot trailed down to put his hand under Charlton’s chin. “Henry should have noticed that when he screened you.”

“I’m sure he did.” Charlton put his fingers on Eliot’s forearm. “But everyone’s had bigger issues than how to get a traveler traveling. I get the impression that travelers are a handful.”

“We’re all a handful.” Eliot wondered if he’d need to have a conversation with Henry about this. Leaving a traveler with old wards up? He must have put his cat down for a few minutes. “At least now you can be a student officially. Although that could be awkward for this.” Eliot pulled back his hand as the idea occurred to him. A relationship with a student could be a breach of protocol.

“If I were in the physical discipline, maybe.”

“I teach more than just physical magic.” Eliot thought about it for a moment. They had at least two other professors that could teach those fundamentals, though, so they would have to arrange his classes carefully. “We can work with it. We’ll have to let Henry in on the deep dark secrets, though.”

“That would be a lot of secrets,” Charlton admitted.

“We’ll give him the edited for television version.” Eliot stretched his arms above his head, and the arms of his robe sliding down his arms reminded him that he remained in the robe. Clothes. Right.

He looked over the tattoos on Charlton’s hands. Taking Charlton’s hands in his own, he looked over the symbols. They now showed up, visible, on each of his fingers. He traced them with his fingers, then looked up to watch the look of rapture on Charlton’s face. He couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have had no concept of touch for so long. “They make your hands look different.” That would be a shift, for certain. After so many months of Charlton first in his head, and then in the flesh but not his own flesh, the two parts of him were starting to come together.

He’d never seen anything like this happen to a person, and it’s possible that it had never happened to anyone, ever. Certainly not in anything Eliot was aware of, and certainly not to someone he’d been having sex with an hour ago. Despite the overall strangeness of it all, though, Eliot felt fine with it. Charlton’s presence reassured him, and it wasn’t just because everyone else was gone. It was because he felt better with Charlton nearby. He could be himself.

“Have you ever considered letting your inside voice become your outside voice?” Charlton suggested. “I can see when you’re thinking.”

“You’re Jiminy Cricket, even out here.” Eliot smiled. He wondered if his smile had started to look less tired, less hopeless.

“You don’t have to share, but you can. I just wanted you to know.”

“I know.” He wasn’t ready for all of that, yet. Charlton already knew so much, and Eliot needed to work out what he wanted the boundaries of this to be. He wanted it to be like it was, he wanted to just say what was on his mind, but old habits were hard to break. “What’s it like being yourself again, while also exploring magic?”

Charlton blinked at the change in topic, and Eliot resolved to ask him as many questions as possible from this point onward. He wanted to know more about Charlton, but even more importantly, Charlton needed to start feeling known, seen. As an expert on hiding yourself from the world, Eliot didn’t want that for Charlton. Adjusting to this world was hard enough without that complication.

“It’s strange. I don’t know if I have a good reference to describe it.”

“Then try,” Eliot suggested.

Nodding, Charlton thought for a moment, closing his eyes. “It’s like the first time I rode a horse and didn’t fall off. I’m moving in a way it feels like I’m supposed to, but didn’t understand before. It’s not entirely like being myself again, because I’ll never be who I was before, but…” He titled his head to the side and smiled. “It’s like going to a new place you’ve never been, trying things you’ve never tried, and finding that maybe you were in the wrong place all along.” He opened his eyes and looked at Eliot. “It might surprise you, but this is a good place to be alive. Earth.”

Eliot snorted. “Really? Because we all think this place is a dumpster fire most of the time.”

“Where isn’t?” Charlton folded his legs up on the couch to sit cross legged. “Earlier, I felt the sun on my skin for the first time in over a thousand years. I think. It was warm. I didn’t have to think about how I’d survive inside of the one room that was safe.”

“But on the other side, there’s stress, hunger, and pain.” Eliot folded his hands in his lap as he listened, not wanting to distract Charlton now.

“That all exists in there, too. You felt it. The only difference is that it’s easier to pretend it doesn’t exist there. There’s nothing wrong with those things, they’re part of being alive. And that’s a lot more than being stuck in between dead and alive. I’ve been living in effectively nowhere for hundreds of years, or more. It feels good to be somewhere. To talk and hear my own voice, and it’s not because it’s in my head.” He reached out and took one of Eliot’s hands, holding it near his face. “I can breathe.” He exhaled over Eliot’s skin.

Charlton could take joy in the things that others took for granted. Eliot stared down at Charlton’s hand, at the tiny lines of the tattoos. He looked back up at Charlton’s face. “That’s actually… weirdly beautiful.”

“I have pain, but I have a lot of things that aren’t pain, too. As do you. I don’t look at myself as broken.” He held onto Eliot’s hand. “And you’re not broken.”

 _You’re not broken._ “I’m not ready to think that,” Eliot said softly, looking away. This had to be Charlton riding the high from magic, from being back in his body, from the sex.

“That’s okay.” Charlton ran his fingers over the palm of Eliot’s hand. “So then let’s talk about the magic.”

Eliot breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, let’s.”

Charlton face shifted into a huge smile and his hands settled in Eliot’s. Eliot didn’t mind; it helped to have a point of connection that remained between them, even if the nature of it was far, far different. Although if Eliot was being honest, he preferred this dynamic. It felt balanced, warmer. Maybe he’d missed touch that much, too.

“It feels like some kind of freedom. Not the traveling, I haven’t done enough of that to find out, but the feeling. Pulling from something more immense than myself, something old but also always changing. And I know that magic comes from the wellspring, and the Fillory I know is gone, but it feels like I’m somehow reaching out to Fillory. It feels like I’m home, no matter where I am. And I know I’ve only put up wards and made one jump, but I feel it inside of me. It’s like a thread, and I want to follow it and see where it goes.”

Eliot watched his face as he spoke, and part of him wanted to be cynical, to tell Charlton that’s how it always feels when you start. Something in Charlton’s face stopped him, though, in the way his eyes brightened when he talked about it. So many magicians took magic for granted; there were exceptions, many of them the people closest to Eliot. Julia, Kady, Penny, Alice, had all had to fight for that magic, couldn’t afford to take it for granted. They all loved the sense of power, but it had been a long time since he’d heard someone speak so honestly about the joy. “I should ask my students more often about how magic makes them feel.”

“You should.” Charlton curled his fingers along Eliot’s palms. “Do I get anything special for being the oldest student at Brakebills? Maybe I could get a special pin or something.” Charlton grinned. “Or maybe I should just take my blessings and hope no one asks too many questions.”

That was another issue that Eliot had thought on a lot, but hadn’t figured out how to deal with yet. If anyone asked where Charlton came from, there would be no answer that didn’t cause more questions. If it were anyone else, Eliot would have suggested that the Library take on Charlton. They wouldn’t ask questions, and they’d provide a stable place and means to learn magic. But Charlton seemed like he needed the sky, the sun. Life.

“It’s not like we haven’t worked out ways to hide whatever we’re up to before,” Eliot pointed out. Or if they just pretended that Charlton was someone with magical potential that had come to them and had no memory.

Charlton’s stomach rumbled and Eliot winced, feeling badly that Charlton still hadn’t eaten an actual meal today. “Sorry there’s not much food here. It’s all so… bland. In addition to turning Margo into a werewolf, Josh also ruined food for me.”

Charlton pulled his hands away and reached for his water, then finished it. “I think Josh probably ruined food for me by association.”

“You’ll find that’s just one of many things that associating with us will ruin,” Eliot noted, but it felt less self deprecating that it once had. He stood up and stretched. “I’m going to go get dressed, and then we’re going to find something to eat.”

Charlton stood with him and started to step back, but Eliot caught his hand and pulled him closer, leaning in to kiss him on the lips. He’d forgotten this, the feeling of being close to someone. Someone who didn’t judge him with all of his baggage, or at the least, maybe judged him but not unfavorably. It helped that kissing him felt really fucking good.

He put his arms around Charlton. “Are you this good at kissing because you got that from my memories, or were you always this good of a kisser?”

“I think it’s a little of both.” He winced. “But I can tell you, I wasn’t always good. That’s practice, but I’m probably rusty. A long time ago.”

“Like magic, practice makes perfect,” Eliot murmured, finally stepping back. That was close enough, for now. He wanted to fall into this, he wanted to see where it went, but shaking the feeling of not deserving this kind of respite was going to take more than a day. If he could ever shake it. The thought knocked the whiskey right out of him. This worked now, but where would it be in a week? A month? Surely Charlton wouldn’t stick around, not once he saw what else the world had to offer.

He didn’t know if Charlton loved him, thought he loved him, or couldn’t truly separate himself from Eliot. All of the options were terrifying in their way, and Eliot forced a smile. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get dressed.” He pulled away and turned to head back up the stairs before Charlton could see the look on his face.

“It’s okay,” Charlton said suddenly, and Eliot paused on the stairs.

“What is?”

“To not know what you want.”

Eliot closed his eyes. “I don’t need your permission to be a mess.”

“You need to give yourself permission.” Charlton’s voice didn’t even have the good grace to sound sad, and Eliot went upstairs to sit on the edge of the bed, putting his head in his hands. He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to open up.

Except he already had. He already had told Charlton his worst secrets, by his own choice. Not because Charlton had seen them, not because he’d known them being in Eliot’s head. Because Eliot had pulled them out, made a list, and shown them to Charlton. Being in the happy place with Charlton and his friends together, even if his friends were memories there. Charlton hadn’t asked him for that; he’d chosen it. He’d already made his decision without even realizing it.

Eliot pulled his hands away from his face and stood, opening a drawer in his dresser and digging. Down at the bottom was an old deck of cards. It hadn’t moved in over two years, a reminder of Quentin that Eliot hadn’t been able to let go of. He set the cards down on the top of the dresser, staring at the pile. Moving his hands, he brought the cards up into the air.

They spun in the room, in the space around him, a dizzying display of his own making.

What would Q say to him if he were here?

The cards danced, dipped, spun, gaining speed. Eliot dropped his hands to his sides, letting the magic flow through him. He didn’t need his hands to do this, not to move something telekinetically. It came to him as easily as breathing now, a thing that had been ashamed of, once. Along with everything else he’d felt shame for, the first life he’d taken with this ability. For some of the lives since.

If Quentin were here, he would ask him why he refused to be happy. Q wouldn’t have ever boiled it down to something as simple as choosing happiness: he of all people understood that you don’t choose that. You find it where you can, and you have to hold onto it. Eliot was good at letting go of happiness, but holding onto everything else.

It was time to change. It was time to shuffle the deck.

Eliot brought his hands together and pulled the cards back together, staring at himself in the mirror. His hair a mess, still in the robe he’d put on. He snatched the cards out of the air and set them down, his finger lingering over the textured surface of the top card. Queen of hearts.

Charlton was right. He needed to give himself permission to feel, to stop hiding everything he felt from everyone, all the time.

He stepped back and pulled out some clothes, determined to take Charlton out for dinner to celebrate his first magic on Earth. He didn’t even know if Charlton liked spicy food or not, or if he’d like panang curry. What if he was allergic to peanuts?

Well, he knew enough magic to figure that out, if it went wrong.

Tugging on a jacket, he looked at himself in the mirror, running his fingers through his hair to fix it. Maybe he needed a haircut. Or maybe, he liked the feeling of how Charlton had run his fingers through it earlier. He smiled, watching his reflection. He’d missed his own smile.

If anyone could figure out how to get to the new Fillory, it was them. All of them, Charlton included. Eliot headed out of the room and down the stairs, ready to tell Charlton he was ready for dinner. And ready for whatever came next.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he found Charlton standing in the dining room, looking confused and hopping around on one foot. He squatted down to poke at a round object laying by the table.

“Are you okay?” Eliot asked, concerned.

Charlton looked up at him. “I’m fine. But something strange is going on here.”

Eliot didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

“I got up to put the dishes away,” Charlton explained. “And I stepped on a pizza.”

“… a pizza.” Probably some shit Todd was pulling, the idiot. Eliot sniffed at the air and sure enough, that was a pizza. His stomach told him yes, but his brain told him no.

“That’s what it looks like, but I’ve never encountered a pizza upside down on the floor before.”

“Give it time, enough parties and no pizza surprises you.” Eliot came up next to him and looked down at it, joining Charlton to examine it. Eliot reached out and touched it, flipping it over.

Somehow, the toppings had not come off of the pizza, despite whatever it went through to get there. Maybe this was someone’s weird idea of a joke?

Charlton frowned. “Does that say ‘ssiw noh’?”

Eliot tugged on the edge, and let out a sigh of relief. “No. Look.” Eliot traced the letters with his fingers. The letters made sense, now that he looked at them.

It was all Eliot needed to know. It was the message he’d been waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a song reference; unlike previous chapters, it's not the song title.


	5. The Eighth Deadly Sin Is Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margo swears with sauce on her face. Josh gets creative.

_Meanwhile in Fillory_

“I need you to send a message, buddy.” Josh sighed. He’d been through this with the bunnies so many times that he was sure he was going to lose his mind. As they’d worked on getting the new Castle Whitespire up and running for the last year, he’d been trying to get a bunny back to earth. Josh had tried everything he could think of, from changing their diet to a specially formulated rabbit food made from the finest carrots and celery that Fillory had to offer, to giving them larger enclosures. He’d even tried sleeping in the bunny pen, although likely due to his werewolf status he’d only made it worse.

Nothing had worked. The bunnies just stared at him. Fen said that they’d had some shock due to the cramped conditions in seahorse ark, and were disoriented by the change of… well, everything.

They hadn’t even managed to get them to send a message locally, which was the most concerning of all. Alice had focused her attention on trying to find another way to send a message through, but given that time consistently moved faster in Fillory than on earth, they still assumed they had time.

Margo, though, had a growing concern about not being able to tell Eliot that they were okay. That they were alive, reestablishing Fillory, and trying to find a way to get back and forth between the two worlds. She’d grown increasingly agitated about it, not to the point she would when it’s a full moon but enough that Josh had to double down on the macarons to keep her from exploding.

Given the stresses of rebuilding an entire world from nothing and the subsequent infrastructure nightmares, though, Margo held her head high and kept everything going. She was High King Margo for a reason, and Josh loved watching her work. She still snarked, she was still Margo, but the maturity she’d gained over the years showed now more than ever.

“Come on, bunny, you’ve got this. I need you to get a message to Eliot. Tell me what you need and you’ve got it. Better food? I’ll come up with something. Do you want hats? We’ll get you hats.”

The bunny stared at him, whiskers twitching, and his posture fell. Well, tomorrow was another day. He picked the bunny up and placed it back in it’s cage, heading back to the kitchen. He’d been working on some new pizza recipes to stay busy; even though he had larger issues than pizza most days, he found that it calmed him and gave him something to focus on. It was important that they all had something they enjoyed. Fen worked on her knife collection, with the help of the knife trees. Alice took delight in her own newfound ability to cast more comfortably than she ever had, now finding the time to cast because it felt good instead of always trying to outdo herself.

Margo, of all of them, had the hardest time relaxing, but Josh had caught her taking a lot of walks, just enjoying the new Fillory. Talking to people. Really seeing the world around her in ways that she hadn’t before. No doubt she was on one of those walks now.

“Josh!” Margo stormed into the kitchen, without her crown and dressed for being outside. Her long coat fluttered behind her as she stalked through the room. “Have you had any luck with the miserable little-“ She stopped herself, shaking her head. “Our logistics partners.”

“No.” Josh pulled a few sausage pizzas out of the oven, the heat rising up in waves. “Pizza?”

“… yes.” Margo leaned against the table and sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t want Eliot thinking we’ve forgotten about him out here.”

“I don’t think Eliot could ever think you’d forget. I’m more worried about him knowing if we’re alive or not.” Josh looked over the pizzas, deciding that they looked pretty close to perfect. While he could get a lot of pizzas out of the wild ovens, there was something cathartic about making his own dough.

“I don’t care if you send a pizza at this point, we just need to get a message through.” Margo reached out and grabbed a piece of one of the pizzas, blowing on it to cool it as she paced the kitchen.

“That’s one approach?” Josh looked down at the sausage pizza, and cast a couple of spells on it. That should do it. “Pizza, go to Eliot.”

The pizza disappeared and Josh stared at the place it had been. “Uh, Margo? I think that worked.”

“Holy motherfucking pig shit. You’re kidding.” Margo turned back and looked at the spot the pizza had been. “What did you write in the box?”

Josh blinked, glancing at the pile of boxes he had to keep pizzas fresh while they were taken all over the castle to feed the workers that were putting the finishing touches on the structure. “I didn’t send it in a box, I didn’t think it would work.”

“What the fuck, Josh, how did you send a message then?” Margo demanded, taking a bite of the pizza.

“There’s some sauce on your face,” he pointed out, reaching up to wipe it off with a finger. She was cute when she was annoyed, somehow. “I put a message on it in sausage and cast a spell to keep the toppings in place.”

“What did you write?” Margo asked, looking up at him.

Josh grinned. “There’s only room for seven letters, so it wasn’t much, but I think Eliot will get the message.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is shamelessly a Jimmy Buffett lyric. No regrets.


	6. Lights That Lead Us There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pizza is deciphered. Eliot explains yellow lights. Charlton contemplates the 55+ menu.
> 
> Some real talk in the car while headed to a dinner date.

Charlton looked over the pizza, his eyes tracing the letters. “Miss you,” he read out loud. The message now made sense, and the realization dawned on him. “Could this be…?” It had to be. Who else would send a pizza that said “miss you”, spelled in sausage, and have it appear out of nowhere? 

Eliot licked the grease from his fingers, getting to his feet. He looked at Charlton, a huge smile on his face. “It’s them. It has to be. It even tastes like Josh’s pizza sausage.”

Charlton had seen so few honest smiles from Eliot, and the feeling felt infectious now. Something that looked like hope had finally awakened in Eliot, not just the fleeting glimpse of earlier but honest hope. Eliot lifted his arms and wrapped them around Charlton, holding onto him.

Eliot’s embrace had changed, his whole posture, the way his arms held Charlton felt more relaxed yet more tight at the same time. Eliot had hugged Charlton before, but this felt like something else. Something buzzed in Eliot, an excitement and a relief that Charlton could feel. Eliot tucked his head in next to Charlton’s, and he realized Eliot was holding back tears. He held Eliot tighter, feeling the slight shake in Eliot’s body. The feeling of knowing, of not having to wonder, lifted something from them both. Charlton could feel Eliot sagging into him and he held on, letting Eliot melt against him. “They did it. They’re there,” Eliot whispered.

“And they miss you.” Charlton could feel every shaky breath that Eliot took.

“Of course they miss me. Who wouldn’t?”

The hole that Margo’s absence left couldn’t be denied. Charlton’s time spent with Eliot and Margo both had underscored how important their connection to each other was, and he admitted even he had missed Margo. Being in Margo’s head had been brief and far less detailed than being in Eliot’s, but the spell to swap bodies that she’d put them both under had been to protect Eliot. At the time, that had frustrated Eliot, but Charlton had been there as Margo tried to do the right thing while in Eliot’s body, for all of Fillory. And for Eliot, to spare him from the pain of having to kill Sebastian. 

Charlton loved her a bit himself, for that. For her desire to try to make things better, in her own often forceful way. 

They had a chance, now, to reunite everyone. To find Fillory, or for the others to find Eliot. “We’ll get to them,” Charlton promised, feeling that same sense of promise. 

“There’s no way we’re not.” Eliot stepped back and put his hands on Charlton’s shoulders. “We’re going to get there somehow. Are you ready for your first real adventure with a body in ages?”

“With you? I’m ready for all the adventures.” Charlton smiled, but inwardly he wondered how much use he’d be. A traveler that could barely travel. He would do whatever he could to make this happen, though. 

“Oh we’re just getting started.” Eliot moved his hands to rest on each side of Charlton’s neck and leaned in to kiss him. 

This kiss felt different from their earlier kisses, on the stairs and in bed. Their kisses on the stairs had been full of a curiosity, followed by reassurance. The feeling that they weren’t alone, a moment of trust when they’d rested their foreheads against each other. Their kisses in bed, they’d been lost in the moment, in exploring each other. This kiss felt like the first flower of spring, or the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Eliot’s hands were warm, his thumbs brushing over Charlton’s jawline.

Charlton couldn’t have high hopes for this, for what could happen between them. He told himself that as much as he cared about Eliot, he needed to remind himself that this might not be anything beyond what they both needed at the moment. Right now, Eliot was caught up in this realization, and as good as it felt to be here with him, Charlton needed to stay grounded. He was Eliot’s friend, first and foremost. It felt wonderful right at that moment, but Charlton had to remember that he didn’t know how this would go between them.

What he did know is that Eliot looked more alive than he had since the others have left for Fillory, and he was sharing that with Charlton. His lips tugged at Charlton’s and he kissed Eliot back. Would being here and alive always feel like this? 

Eliot pulled back, just long enough to say, “You’re thinking too hard.”

Charlton swallowed. He hadn’t thought this out very far, or very well. Or maybe as Eliot said, he thought too much. “Thinking is all I’ve gotten to do for a long time.”

“Mmm I see we’ve got some work to do, then.” Eliot’s fingers pressed along the edges of his spine, making him forget for a moment that he’d lived nowhere for nearly a thousand years. 

Touch felt as vital as breathing, and Charlton laid his hand on Eliot’s cheek. He’d forgotten so much about touch, about how it felt. He hadn’t even thought about Eliot like this, not at first. He’d only thought about much of a relief it would be if he could reassure Eliot with more than just his words. It hadn’t been until he’d had a body that he’d started putting thought into any of the other possibilities. “I’ve been told I’m a quick study.” He took one of Eliot’s hands and held it in his, kissing the inside of his wrist. Eliot’s pulse thrummed against his lips.

Maybe he knew too much about Eliot. Maybe he cared too much. But when Eliot’s eyes met his, all his reservations about it melted away. This felt right, and while Charlton didn’t know entirely what that meant yet, he wanted to find out. 

“You will. Maybe after we’ve found some food.” Eliot looked down at the pizza. “Normally I wouldn’t even consider passing on a Josh sausage special, but…”

Charlton arched an eyebrow, glad for the change in topic. “Something else you and Margo have in common, apparently.” 

Eliot let out a laugh. “In addition to having you inside both of us.” Eliot made a face, and Charlton felt his skin flush. “Metaphysically speaking. Anyway.” He gathered up the pizza and set it on the table. “It’s been on the floor, so there’s no way we’re eating it. I know exactly where this floor has been, and it’s seen some shit that I would never intentionally put in my mouth.” He tapped the edge of the crust. “Sorry, message pizza.”

“I’m hungry enough that I’d eat it anyway.” Charlton felt himself feeling a little lightheaded and wondered if maybe he should eat the pizza. After all, he didn’t know what had been on the floor, either. 

“Let’s see if Todd eats it, he doesn’t know where it’s been.” Eliot took Charlton’s hand, entwining his fingers with Charlton’s. “Let’s go get something that hasn’t been laying in the den of debauchery that’s probably this floor.”

Charlton looked down at their joined hands. It felt right to him, that their hands fit perfectly together. Filling in the gaps, balancing each other out. “Think of the food we can find when I can take us anywhere.”

“I’m already thinking about it.” Eliot squeezed his hand. “But one step at a time, traveling is the sort of thing that can get you killed so let’s start small. And get you attending classes like a proper student.”

They walked out the door and the breeze hit them again. 

“Oh well that won’t do,” Eliot muttered, glancing over at Charlton. “You’re going to get cold.”

Charlton thought he’d probably be fine, but he let go of Eliot’s hand and dashed back into the cottage. He had a small pile of clothes that were his, and while most of them needed to be washed, he had a clean sweater. He didn’t know if a sweater would work over the buttoned shirt he currently wore, but it was all he could think of. He pulled it on and hurried back down the stairs to go outside.

Eliot stared at him when he came through the door, and for a moment Charlton was worried that he’d made a mistake with the sweater. Then Eliot reached out and put his hand on Charlton’s arm, running his fingers over the texture of the sweater. “This looks good on you.”

Charlton felt a hint of a blush creep into his cheeks, and realized that he’d forgotten what blushing felt like. Now he’d felt it multiple times in a day. Another phenomenon for him to get used to in all of this. Charlton felt the breeze ruffle his hair. It had a hint of moisture to it, implying the possibility of rain. A glance up at the heavy water-laden clouds confirmed it. He picked up the conversation where they’d left off. “It will be nice to start classes. Something to keep me busy. Just not your classes. It seems that it would be inappropriate.”

“So you don’t have a secret teacher kink?” Eliot teased as they started towards the parking area. 

Pondering, Charlton realized that he only knew that word in passing from his time in Eliot’s head, and he hadn’t retained enough memories to remember anything past that it wasn’t anything he wanted to ask Eliot about in much detail. “I… don’t know what that means. Should I?” 

Eliot laughed, falling into a comfortable stride beside him. “I’m glad you’re still here, Charlton.”

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” he admitted. It seemed impossible, if he thought about it too hard. “It would have been easy for me not to be. Thanks for not giving up on me.”

“Give up on you?” Eliot snorted. “I don’t give up easily.” Eliot seemed to take a great interest in the trees they walked under for a moment, before he spoke again. “You don’t, either.” 

“So, we’re both stubborn.” Charlton looked around as they walked under the canopy of trees. Colors felt brighter, different. The smell of the coming rain, of some particularly strong scented flower. The feeling of just walking through the world as himself hit him, and he smiled. He’d missed the feel of his own feet on the ground as he walked, of being a part of the world around him. “What are we finding for dinner?”

“Do you have anything you don’t eat?” Eliot winced. “I know that’s a terrible question, you don’t have a lot of experience with most food.”

“It’s fine.” Charlton paused, thinking. He’d tried plenty of foods while visiting Kady in the city, but he’d never actually been to a restaurant. “I haven’t been to a restaurant before,” he admitted. “I’ve eaten a lot of different kinds of food, but it’s always been takeout. Kady is almost always working on something, so she tends to order in.”

“Hmm. Rude. We really should get you out more.” Eliot looked over at him. “So nothing you want?”

“Anywhere that we can talk would be nice,” Charlton admitted.

Eliot thought for a moment. “I know just the place.” He turned to walk backwards in front of Charlton, and Charlton wondered how he could manage that without tripping or falling over anything. “How do you feel about Italian food?” 

“I love Italian food! I ate a whole order of spaghetti and meatballs over at the apartment once,” Charlton admitted. In retrospect, he had some regrets about eating so much food in one sitting. He wasn’t used to the portions of food on Earth. He’d asked Kady if he could order off the 55+ menu since he was over 55+ in both mind and body, but she’d told him that since he didn’t have identification, it was better to not ask. He wondered what other limitations could exist without legal identification, and if there were some way to work around that.

“Spaghetti and meatballs is good, but nothing beats the lasagna at Giano’s.” Eliot grinned. “Kady might have got to pop some of your food cherry, but I’m going to finish the job.”

Charlton started to ask what that meant, and then realized that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t want to know this time. 

# # #

The restaurant was a short car trip away according to Eliot, and he borrowed a car from the small lot. “Most of us don’t drive,” he explained as they got into the car. “We spend a lot of time on campus, or finding other ways to get where we need to go. But once in a while, it’s fun. Put on your seatbelt,” he added, pulling a strap of some material from over his shoulder.

Charlton watched as he pulled it over himself and inserted a metal piece into a little box. He heard a click.

“I don’t know what that is,” Charlton admitted, reaching up to try to find his own. His hand hit the cold glass of the window and he grasped at air with his hand.

Eliot looked over and reached down between Charlton’s legs. Charlton swallowed, not sure what this was but it didn’t feel like something they should be doing in a parking lot at the school. Eliot fumbled around and then Charlton felt himself sliding backwards. “What the fuck?”

Laughing, Eliot straightened back up. “Whoever was here before you was a lot shorter than you. If you pull up on the lever, you can move it.”

Charlton reached down and found the lever that Eliot referred to, lifting it as instructed. He then moved the seat as far back as it would go, and as far forward as it could go. Then he adjusted it to somewhere in the middle. “Did they think of everything in these?” he asked, inspecting a series of small levers with tiny pictures on them that were embedded in the door.

“I certainly hope so.” Eliot looked amused. “So in all those trips to the city, you never took a car?”

Shaking his head, Charlton reached up to get the seatbelt and pulled it over himself, mimicking Eliot’s motion a moment earlier and inserting the metal piece into the box. He heard the click, then pulled his hands away. “No. I got good at transit though.”

“I can’t decide if that’s a good thing, or if you trying to figure out the buses in New York is actually terrifying,” Eliot declared, navigating the car out of the parking space and moving through the lot. “Parking in the city is awful, but I know a few places. If you know the right spell, there’s some parking garages we can use that hopefully won’t be full of magicians that don’t know how to park.” Eliot rolled his eyes. 

Eliot looked comfortable behind the wheel of the small car, and Charlton settled into the seat for the trip. “What’s lasagna?”

“You’ll see.” Eliot turned right, onto a road with more cars. 

They passed by too close, next to them, behind them, and Charlton looked around, feeling nervous as he crossed his arms and sunk down into the seat. His heartbeat sounded loud in his chest, making him feel anxious. He attempted to lean forward to adjust himself, but the belt held him in place. He didn’t like that feeling so he pressed himself back into the seat. “How do people do this so often? Drive.”

“Carefully,” Eliot declared, reaching over to put a hand on Charlton’s leg. 

Charlton wanted him to have both hands on the wheel, but he trusted Eliot to know what he was doing. He just didn’t feel like he trusted anyone else at that moment. But Eliot’s touch was reassuring, and Charlton put a hand on Eliot’s, brushing his fingers over his hand.

“It helps if we talk rather than focus on the cars.” Eliot’s glance slid to Charlton for a moment then back to the road. “You mentioned your family before, but only in passing. You know more or less about my family and my shame of being related to them, but you haven’t said very much about your own.”

They had talked before when Charlton had first started trying to sort his own memories out. He’d found that he’d locked a lot of memories away, to keep them safe, and to keep him from feeling the sorrow of those things being so far away. Bringing his family back up would risk him feeling that grief, that feeling of them being gone and him never knowing what would happen. But it was only fair that he share with Eliot, even if it hurt a little. He knew that Eliot would understand if he said no, but he wanted to tell Eliot. He wanted to tell Eliot everything, but that would take time. And patience.

Start simple. “You know my mother was a midwife,” he explained. “There’s whole parts of my childhood where I used to go along with her, usually if the woman had other kids. I’m good at keeping an eye on them, but I also used to be able to do enough illusion magic to keep them entertained. Sometimes the births were particularly difficult, so I would use it to mask the sound from the children to keep them from getting upset.”

“Oh, the parties we could have used someone with those skills at,” Eliot lamented.

“I wish I could still do it.” Charlton shrugged. “I haven’t tried since we fixed the ward, though, so it’s always possible. I’d rather not try in a car, though.”

“I’ll drink to that. And not in a car, either.” Eliot pulled his hand back and put it back on the wheel. He turned to the left at a green light. “What about your father? You mentioned he made furniture.”

“He did,” Charlton affirmed. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the smooth wood of an intricate chair his father had lovingly carved. He’d sat in it after a long day, his fingers running over the perfect surface. “I could be biased, but he made some of the most beautiful furniture in Fillory. My grandfather also built furniture.” He opened his eyes and looked over at Eliot. “It’s not the most interesting profession to some, but to them, it was everything. Two of my sisters also worked in the shop, learning the same techniques, refining them. Wood in Fillory felt like it still had a life, a connection.” The wood always had an inherent warmth, something he missed here on Earth. “Appreciating it also meant appreciating its origins, where it came from, what a tree gave up for that. And in return, my family nurtured the trees.”

The edges of Eliot’s mouth curved up into a smile. “That’s beautiful. I’d never thought of it that way.” His face fell, and Charlton could already tell what thought crossed Eliot’s mind.

“It’s okay,” he said quickly, uncrossing his arms and putting a hand on Eliot’s shoulder. “I know that everything they built is gone. I’ve had time to come to terms with that.” He sighed. “I’d give a lot to have just one of those chairs, to run my hands over the scrollwork. It feels like so many parts of me are gone. I want to feel like a person again.”

Eliot reached up and took Charlton’s hand, holding it. “You’re very much a person, Charlton.”

“I know that, rationally,” Charlton admitted. “But I also don’t know where I belong yet.” Voicing the fears out loud somehow made them more real. This wasn’t the conversation he wanted to have.

“Charlton,” Eliot said, squeezing his hand. “I have complete faith that you’ll work this out, and wherever you decide your place is, I’m positive that everyone will be happy to know you. With all your quirks and everything.”

The weight that felt like it had been holding him down lifted, just a little. “Are you admitting I’m weird?”

“Good weird,” Eliot murmured, kissing Charlton’s hand before letting it go. “Find what makes you happy, what makes you feel like you belong. I spent a long time trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be.”

Charlton let that sink in for a moment, his eyes following the curve of Eliot’s nose. He still retained pieces of that pain, that he’d picked up from Eliot. He wasn’t sure it was entirely over for Eliot, but he understood. “I’m glad you’re you.”

Eliot didn’t reply, but Charlton saw a blush creep into his cheeks.

They stopped at another light that was red, and Charlton looked up at it. “It’s red for you to stop. Green is go.” He looked back to Eliot. “What’s the yellow one?”

“Go faster,” Eliot said, and laughed. “It’s from a movie. I’ll show you sometime.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. 

Charlton watched his fingers, and remembered the snap of them breaking. Watching him move them felt like such a relief after that. Healed. Sometimes you put yourself back together one piece at a time. He wondered how scattered his own pieces were. “I know it seems everything I’ve been through was terrible,” Charlton said, reaching out to touch Eliot’s hand. “But I think I’m exactly where I need to be, no matter how I got here.” 

Eliot swallowed visibly and looked over at him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

From behind them, a loud honk sounded and Charlton jumped. He looked up to see the light was green. 

“That guy ruined a perfectly good moment,” Eliot muttered, lifting his hand to put it back on the wheel and driving. 

Charlton laughed because being alive felt so good. “There will be more.”

“I hope so,” Eliot admitted. “Although I have to say that I never expected the voice inside my head to become the voice outside my head.”

“I’d lost hope about being a voice inside or outside anyone’s head.” Charlton smiled, finally relaxing into the strangely rigid yet almost comfortable seat.


	7. Something Just Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot hates cheap souvenirs. Charlton battles the crosswalk button.

They pulled up to a wall in the city, covered in graffiti. Hidden within the design was a series of magic sigils. Eliot lifted his hands and moved them in the air, twisting and turning until he held them out in front of him to finish the tut that would open the garage. The wall shimmered for a moment and Eliot pulled forward through it.

Beside him, Charlton winced, pulling away from the window. “How long does it take to get used to driving through walls?”

“Not long, once you know what magic can do. Driving through a wall because of magic is easier than learning to drive, at least.” The parking garage came into focus as he pulled through on the other side, and Eliot pulled the car into a space. “And we’re here.”

They got out and exited the garage through a door that let them out into a dark alley. It felt ominous, but it minimized the chances that someone would notice people walking out of a wall. It meant that they walked into a dark space and not into an entire crowd of people.

Charlton looked over his shoulder at the wall behind them, reaching back to put his hand on it. “It feels solid.”

“It is. This particular lot uses portal spells to move through the walls. Some use illusions to have a similar effect, but the problem with illusions is that some people can see through them, or stumble on it anyway. They also need to be renewed sometimes.” Eliot looked up at the building. “The lot isn’t even that close to the restaurant, but the exit is, which makes it easier to avoid as much of the clusterfuck that is New York traffic.”

Charlton pulled his hand away from the wall. “This is well beyond any of the illusion magic I ever knew. I want to understand how it all works, what it all means. It’s all so fascinating.”

“You’ll learn,” Eliot promised. He looked down at Charlton’s hand, wanting to take it. Wanting to finally walk down the street publicly, hand in hand with someone. He’d done it plenty of times with Margo, although they were more arm in arm, but that was different. Margo was his platonic soulmate. Charlton was an entirely different matter.

He wanted it, he wanted to take that step, but he couldn’t. Not yet. What was worse was that he didn’t know if he’d be able to take Charlton’s hand if the other offered it. He wanted to take his hand, so badly that something ached in him. He wanted Charlton to know that he wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed. As he’d felt about himself for so long.

Maybe he wasn’t ready to walk hand in hand down a street, but that didn’t mean he had nothing to offer. Taking a breath, Eliot leaned in and kissed Charlton on the lips. “Let’s go.” He started walking and Charlton fell into a perfect pace beside him as they moved out of the alley and onto the sidewalk along a busy street. Here, the breeze they’d felt earlier got caught up in the rows of buildings, causing a stronger wind. He shivered when the cold wind hit him, and he looked over at Charlton who had crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you okay?”

Charlton nodded. “It’s actually nice. Being cold. I’d forgotten what it feels like.”

“Oh, that novelty will definitely wear off,” Eliot noted. “Soon you’ll join the normal people in muttering about the wind.” He gestured up ahead of them. “We’re not going far, it’s a few blocks up.” It occurred to him that Charlton might not even know what a block is. “How much Earth terminology did you pick up from me?”

“Enough to get by. I’ll let you know if anything’s confusing.”

They walked down the street in silence, Eliot watching Charlton’s face as he took in the details with wide eyes. Charlton missed nothing, his mouth slightly open like it was when he was processing something or thinking.

“It’s so bright,” he finally said. “How do people live here every day?”

“They get used to it.” Charlton’s observations about the world made him want to change the way he looked at the world himself. “I take for granted that I’m used to it.”

“I understand that. I took for granted that I lived in a magical land, until it wasn’t there anymore.”

That note of sadness had snuck into Charlton’s voice again. “It’s always hard to realize what you’ve got until you’ve lost it,” Eliot noted, pushing his own grief down. “Life is a bitch like that.”

“That’s one way of putting it I suppose.” He uncrossed his arms and stretched them over his head. “Fillory and Earth are not that much different, once you get outside of the cities. But I miss the talking animals.”

“Of all the things to miss,” Eliot muttered. The talking animals were like having another whole group of people to negotiate with, not realizing it until you’d already opened your mouth, and then continue to hit communication barriers. At least messenger pizza wasn’t talking back. “They were always full of so much… attitude.”

“When you agree with them, you’d probably call it sass,” Charlton pointed out.

“You’re probably right. But none of them could out sass Margo.”

“They probably tried.” Charlton laughed. “I wish I would have been there for that.”

“Hopefully you won’t miss out on future classic events like ‘Margo vs the sloth’,” Eliot noted.

Charlton watched everything as they walked, as if he tried to commit all the details to memory. He turned to watch the cars splash through the puddles of water on the road, to look up at the trees evenly spaced along the edges of the sidewalk. He walked onto the metal grates that surrounded them. Always exploring something, running his fingers along the surface of a bright read bike rack, reaching out a hand to run it across a newspaper stand.

At one of these, he stopped, peering inside. “It’s the news on paper.” He blinked, looking over at Eliot. “I thought everyone got it digitally these days?”

“Most do, but some people are stuck in the past. Or they just like the feel of the paper in their hands while they’re drinking their coffee. It’s like reading a paper book versus reading a book on a phone.”

Charlton winced. “I’ll stick to paper.”

“You’re not alone.” Eliot had the same preference, mostly because most of the books he read had to do with magic, and that meant that they’d be physical books. Digital books on magic had begun to circulate, part of the hedge witches’ efforts to make magic training more accessible, but Eliot hadn’t taken to those. And he hadn’t read for fun in many, many years. He used to, but it had fallen under another thing his family just didn’t understand about him. Reading grand stories, adventures. He wished he’d kept at it. It would have been something else to talk to Quentin about.

“I think you’ll like this restaurant,” Eliot commented, forcing his mind away from that subject. “The food is excellent, and the staff actually gives a shit. I always wanted to-“ He bit off what he had been going to stay, realizing that this wasn’t the place or the time. A sadness filled him.

“Bring Q there,” Charlton said, finishing the thought as he stepped back from the newspaper dispenser and looked back at Eliot. His eyebrows were raised slightly, and he looked receptive, sympathetic.

Why did he have to be so _damn_ perceptive all of the fucking time? “When you put it that way, it makes me sound like a huge asshole.”

“It doesn’t, though.” He met Eliot’s gaze. “It’s something that means a lot to you.”

“It’s not polite to bring up an ex during a date,” Eliot declared, starting forward again to hide the haunted look that his face no doubt reflected.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Charlton pointed out, falling into step beside him. “It’s okay to say you wish you’d had that chance with him. It’s nothing against me.” Charlton looked thoughtful. “In fact, I would argue that it’s actually rather nice that you’re willing to take me somewhere that means that much to you.”

Eliot let out a sigh. He wasn’t sure if he was frustrated or touched. “Charlton, you don’t have to be this gracious about this sort of thing.”

“But why not be?” Charlton countered. “I accepted you with all of this. With you still being in love with Quentin, with you still grieving. I chose to be here. And you’re here of your own choice, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am.” And, he was; he could admit that much. He could have turned Charlton down, and perhaps this is why he didn’t. Charlton wasn’t forcing him to get over it, he wasn’t pretending like it never happened, and he wasn’t jealous or afraid. It could be the fact that Q was gone. But it could be exactly as Charlton said: Charlton was aware and had reached out to Eliot anyway. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Charlton affirmed. “I wasn’t sure if I ever would be anywhere.”

“How does it feel?” Eliot gestured vaguely at Charlton. He was still getting used to the idea of him being real and here and walking next to him. A little part of him felt confused because a number of months ago, this conversation would have made Eliot look like a madman, talking to himself while walking down the street. “Being able to walk around as yourself.”

“Even the ground feels different.” Charlton took a few heavy footfalls along the pavement of the sidewalk. “It took me a week to remember how to run with a body.”

“Lucky for me you remember sex better than you remembered running, then.” The topic change helped, and Eliot appreciated the chance to have a conversation that wasn’t full of drama or crisis.

“I’m good at remembering anything that’s sitting or laying down.” Charlton looked over at Eliot and no doubt saw him smirk. “Yes, yes, you can say it.”

“Oh, I don’t even _have_ to say it. You already know. Besides, we’re out in public.” Eliot looked around at the shops and restaurants along the edge of the sidewalk as they passed them.

Charlton paused at a window and peered at an assortment of ridiculous items emblazoned with “I love New York” and other cheesy slogans.

“We’re not stopping there,” Eliot declared. Of course it would be one of those tourist traps where they charge $5 for a cheap pen because it said some dumb slogan about the city. “It’s all overpriced junk. I’ll show you where the good stuff is sometime.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s overpriced, I don’t have money anyway.” Charlton backed away from the shop, still looking at some snow globe of the Statue of Liberty. “I just like looking at things.”

Eliot couldn’t even remember when he wasn’t so jaded; guilt filled him for discouraging Charlton. “Oh. In that case, we’ll find one when we don’t have a dinner to get to.” He remembered that Charlton had said he had been taking the bus around. “How have you been getting around on the bus?”

“Kady set me up with a transit card,” Charlton explained.

“And now I feel like a terrible friend,” Eliot admitted. “I should have thought of all of this.” He’d been so caught up in everything happening that he hadn’t thought of it. Charlton had seemed self sufficient, had gotten back and forth from Kady’s apartment, been getting books from the campus library, finding ways to keep himself busy. It’s like since everyone else left he’d forgotten how to look out for others. Charlton had figured that all out or done it with the help of others.

“It’s not like you’re doing nothing. You’ve taken plenty of time talking to me, even though you also have to spend a lot of time as a professor.” Charlton shrugged. “That’s what a network of friends is for, to balance it out.”

“I forget that a lot.” He’d put a lot of friendships at risk over the years because of it, because he didn’t know how to ask for help, or how to rely on many people. Margo had been easy, Margo knew what he typically needed, even if it wasn’t what he wanted sometimes. She was far from the only one.

“I noticed.”

“Hah hah.” Eliot shook his head. “I’m glad you talk to more people than just me.”

“It’s mostly Kady, but I’ve talked to Julia a bit. Not as much Penny, he tends to travel a lot. We probably would have noticed the warding issue earlier, otherwise.”

“You guys did work it out. Although that’s another thing I should have noticed.” Eliot hated not feeling like he’d been on top of any of this.

“Figuring me out is not your job.”

As much as that statement seemed like it was obvious, Eliot was relieved to hear Charlton say it. He didn’t need to deal with someone who needed constant reassurance or help, which Charlton didn’t seem to need. He hoped this continued, but he still wanted to find ways to be of some use.

Looking around, he spotted the restaurant on the other side of the street. “That’s where we’re headed. Let’s cross here.” He stepped up to the crosswalk and got ready to push the button.

Charlton stepped around him and hit the button, perhaps with more enthusiasm than needed. Then he proceeded to hit it at least twenty more times. Eliot wasn’t really sure, the sudden furious tapping was too fast to track. “It won’t make it turn any faster, it’ll just piss everyone off,” he warned, putting a hand on Charlton’s to stop him.

“I know it doesn’t help, it just kind of feels good. And everyone is always doing it.”

“Oh don’t let that be your criteria, you’ll end up arrested.” At least he didn’t walk out into traffic, which would have been far worse. He was almost afraid to ask how that went the first time.

“I’ve been locked up long enough, I’ll pass.” Charlton shuffled at the edge of the curb. “That was a bad joke, sorry.”

The light turned and Charlton paused long enough to look both ways, and Eliot stepped up next to him and off the curb. They crossed the street without event, although Eliot noticed that Charlton took measured steps along the white lines of the crosswalk. When the don’t walk started flashing, Charlton sped up. “Yellow light,” he called back to Eliot, who shook his head and smiled.

Maybe this was going to work out better than he thought. Charlton had a newfound energy for life that was hard not to get a little caught up in. It didn’t pull Eliot out of the hole he felt like he was in, but it made him feel like there was some hope for him.

Charlton hopped up onto the curb, and spun around, grinning. Eliot supposed that if someone who spent so long in nowhere could find things to love about life, that weren’t just food and alcohol, maybe he could, too. He loved teaching, but it wasn’t the same as being High King. He missed too many things about life, but so had Charlton, at some point.

He caught up to Charlton and they were on the corner, in front of the restaurant. Giano’s Italian Cuisine, the sign read, in a glowing red neon cursive. “Here it is, the best lasagna in New York. Don’t tell Julia I said that, she likes the complete trash pile of a place on the other side of town. The sauce is dreadfully salty there, I’d trust Margo to make a lasagna before I’d trust them.” Eliot winced, stepping forward to open the door. He closed his hand around the metal handle, holding it for a moment. For all of the impossible events that had brought them to this point, he was opening a door literally and figuratively to something normal, something good. Something just like this.

He looked back at Charlton, who lifted his face to look up at the sign, his face lit in red tones and his lips parted.

“Magic and technology aren’t that far apart,” Charlton observed, looking back to Eliot. “And no amount of either would lead me to trust Margo with a lasagna.”

“Then it’s good we’re eating here and not the other place.” Eliot gestured to the open door. “After you.”


	8. Smiling At The Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlton finds out he loves lasagna. Eliot still think’s it’s fun when Charlton uses “fuck” correctly.

So _this_ was an Earth restaurant! Charlton walked through the door and into a small hallway covered in different framed images and pieces of text. There was no way he’d be able to read them all, but he glanced over the pictures. He’d seen enough pictures to know that they appeared to be of varying ages, the clothing styles different, the picture quality sometimes clear and other times grainy.

He stopped at a large picture of a bunch of people in clothing he couldn’t quite figure out. Some bright colors, some subdued ones. The bottoms of the pants were oddly large. “I don’t know if this is actual clothing, or some kind of costumes.”

Eliot peered at the pictures. “Oh, that’s the 70’s. Sadly, that all really happened. And it will never happen again.”

Charlton laughed. “I’ll take your word on that.”

Edging past him, Eliot walked up to a podium where a pretty young woman with dark hair waited, smiling. “How many, sir?”

“Two.” He looked around her and towards a corner of the restaurant. “Is the table in the back available?”

A man came up and pulled two long booklets out of a holder. “Not anymore.” He grinned. “Welcome back to Giano’s, Eliot. Right this way.”

Eliot gestured for Charlton to follow and he did, looking around as they moved through the tables. White and red tablecloths topped the tables in square patterns, with bright arrangements of flowers in the middle of each table. Blue designs covered the walls, similar to the walls of the Physical Kids’ Cottage. The dim lighting from an eclectic variety of lights cast interesting shadows, as people moved with surprising agility considering they were balancing trays of food and drink.

“It’s like a tavern in… ah. Back home. But prettier.” Talking about being from a fantasy kingdom that was only known on Earth as being the setting for a series of children’s books would likely just make him sound crazy.

“They’re not all this pretty. But for your first dinner in New York, you need to go somewhere pretty,” Eliot pointed out as they reached the table. He gestured to the red upholstered bench tucked into the corner. “Have a seat.”

Charlton slid past the chair on the other side of the table, brushing his hands over the ornately carved wood as he passed. Not as good as his father would have done, but solid, precise work for a chair that so many people were bound to use, every day. He sat in the bench, sinking into the plush dark red cushion. Eliot sat on the other side of the bench so that they were both in the corner. Eliot’s knee bumped into his under the table and stayed there. Charlton liked the casual contact of it. He’d forgotten how that felt.

“Do you need menus, or is it the usual?” the man asked, holding out the booklets that Charlton presumed were the mentioned menus. Menus in Fillory were more likely to be recited or up on a board.

“We’ll take the menus.” Eliot took one from the man, who handed the other one to Charlton.

The man removed the extra chairs and walked away. Charlton opened the menu. There was a staggering number of items in here, and he couldn’t even begin to make sense of it. “I thought we were getting lasagna?”

“One, it’s rude to assume what one’s date will order,” Eliot pointed out. “But two, you deserve the full Earth experience of ‘overwhelming menu full of items’.” He smiled. “Be lucky it isn’t Cheesecake Factory.”

A memory tugged at Charlton’s mind and it slipped out before he thought to stop it. “Once you ate three slices in one sitting.”

Eliot winced. “Do you remember why?”

Charlton thought for a moment and couldn’t recall. “I don’t know.”

“Thank god for small mercies,” Eliot muttered, grabbing his napkin and smoothing it over his lap. “I’ll tell you but not tonight. You remember the oddest things.”

Charlton followed Eliot’s motions with the napkin, then looked back down at the impressive amount of text in the menu. He didn’t know exactly what a burrata was but it was cheese and he was certain he’d eat it. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I can not bring things up I remember, if that’s better.”

Eliot set his menu down and looked at Charlton across the table. “I don’t mind, actually. I’m harder to open up than a can of soup.”

Charlton laughed at that, a reference to when Eliot had a cold a month ago and Charlton had tried to warm up chicken noodle soup. The can had thwarted him and Eliot had ended up making his way downstairs in his bathrobe to show Charlton the can opener. “Are you sure?”

“Positively. It’s a little easier, that you know things. I know it’s lazy of me to say that, but it’s reassuring to know that someone knows me and is here. But I do have one ask, and that’s that for everything you remember about me, tell me something about you.”

Charlton’s own memories came in bits and pieces and he thought for a moment, looking back down at the text. He’d spent so long not being anyone that the idea of someone _wanting_ to know something about him felt foreign. Eliot had asked him plenty of questions which he’d answered, but this felt like am more personal invitation. He reached for a random story in his childhood in the vein of eating three cheesecakes. “When I was five I ate two jars of my mother’s strawberry jam. My sister found me asleep with my face covered with something red and she…” He managed to recall his sister’s face and he felt a laugh shake him a little. “She didn’t take that well.”

Eliot started laughing and Charlton reveled in the sound, in the lightness in it. “So you weren’t always so good at working out the logic, it sounds like.”

“I got wise through trial and mostly error.” Charlton watched Eliot, the amusement on his face, the honest beautiful smile on his face. It felt good to see him look more relaxed. “I was sick for two days.”

“So we’re both idiots that will eat too much left to our own devices,” Eliot declared, bringing his hand up under Charlton’s arm to take his hand.

That, he hadn’t been expecting, the casual level of touch. But maybe this is what people did at restaurants. He intertwined his fingers with Eliot’s without thinking about it, feeling how well their hands fit together. “And I’m about to do exactly that,” Charlton added, looking back down at the menu. He read over a number of items, asking Eliot questions as he went. He’d never seen this many food items listed in one place, and so many things that he’d never heard of. The idea of little pasta items filled with meat, cheese, or squash? He didn’t even know what pesto was but he wanted to know. He got to the end with the desserts. Desserts, now those he knew. One word in particular stuck out to him and he tapped it with his finger. “Cheesecake!”

Eliot looked over at where Charlton pointed. “We can, but the tiramisu is to _die_ for.”

Charlton searched for it on the menu and scanned the text. He didn’t understand what most of it meant, but the persistent empty feeling in his stomach made him feel like he’d eat anything. “I’m fine with the lasagna and the tiramisu.”

Eliot started chuckling. “Tiramisu. You’re pronouncing it tira-mee-su. It’s more like tira-mi-SU.”

“Tiramisu,” he repeated slowly, waiting for Eliot’s nod that he’d gotten it correct before he continued. He looked at the menu again. “What about burrata?”

“It’s fantastic, let’s do it.” Eliot closed his menu and set it down as the man came back with two glasses of water and a glass of wine. Eliot swirled the wine in the glass and sniffed at it. “James, I haven’t been here in two years, how do you remember the right wine?”

“I’m good at that.” The man smiled, and Charlton started to wonder what it felt like to move through the world seeing familiar faces, people that he knew, people that knew him. He’d been forgotten for so long that the idea of it didn’t make sense. The man looked at Charlton. “Have you had a moment to look at the wine menu?”

Eliot shook his head. “I’m a rude date and didn’t even open it. I don’t believe Charlton is much of a drinker, but I don’t want to assume. It’s our first date,” he confessed. He squeezed Charlton’s hand, and Charlton recognized it as an opportunity to speak up and correct Eliot.

“Oh! You should have told me.” The man winked. “In that case, the tiramisu is on the house.”

“I won’t complain.” Eliot grinned, looking at Charlton. “Do you want to look over the wine list?”

Charlton shook his head, not wanting to try to face another giant list of choices, or risk getting drunk in public. “I’m fine. Could I just get a Coke?”

“Is Pepsi fine?”

Charlton froze. Now that word, he didn’t know at all, beyond some ads in the subway stations. He didn’t want to look out of place and ask, so instead he nodded. “Sure.”

“So, we’ll take one burrata, I’ll have lasagna.” He looked to Charlton.

“I’ll also have lasagna,” Charlton offered. There had been so many options, too many options. One of the books he’d been reading had introduced the term “paralysis by analysis”, a state of thinking so hard about the right choice that you end up making no choice at all. He had time to try other options. For tonight, he’d take a recommendation.

“And one tiramisu. Or else we’re going to be too stuffed to make it home.” Eliot gathered up the menus and James picked them up.

“We do have to go boxes,” James pointed out.

“If it wasn’t Friday, I’d do that to get my lunch for tomorrow.” Eliot smiled and waited for James to walk away before he looked back to Charlton.

Charlton took a drink of the water, the glass cold in his hand and covered in condensation. “So what _is_ a Pepsi?” he asked.

“It’s basically Coke. Now that’s something you can’t say too loud, to some people that’s asking for a fight.”

“Todd says I’m a Coke fiend.”

Eliot rolled his eyes. “As a rule, don’t repeat most of what Todd says, at least not in public. That doesn’t mean what it sounds like it does.” He looked around the restaurant for a moment before his gaze landed back on Charlton. “What do you think?”

“Of what?” Charlton thought back through the events of the day, suddenly very aware of the warmth of Eliot’s hand in his. “The restaurant, the attractive man that brings us drinks, being alive in my own body, stepping on a sausage pizza, being on a date with you, or…?”

“Point taken.” Eliot settled into the cushion of the booth, sipping at his glass of wine. “Just a second.” He pulled his hand away from Charlton’s and put his hands under the table to make a gesture that Charlton couldn’t see. Charlton could feel a slight change in the space around them as Eliot pulled his hands back up and took Charlton’s hand again. “Audio perception filter. Keeps anyone from overhearing us unless they’re right next to the table. That way you can talk about all the things that make you sound crazy.” Eliot swirled the wine glass in his other hand. “What I’m asking is if you’re having a good time. I’m a fabulous host of course, but this is a first date for us and a first ever date here on Earth for you.”

It all felt weird, but not in a bad way. He liked the sense of adventure inherent in just going somewhere to get a meal. “I’m having a great time, Eliot. It’s probably going to sound stupid, but for me, it’s like a bit of an adventure doing something that I haven’t done before. That’s actually really exciting.” He laughed. “You could probably take me to a park and I’d tell you in detail why the grass was interesting.”

Something in Eliot’s face softened. “Well, don’t go that far.” Eliot held Charlton’s hand tighter. “It goes away after a while, that feeling of excitement. You should enjoy it as much as you can.”

Charlton recognized that as Eliot’s inner cynic. “Does it have to go away? It seems like there might be always something interesting and new to see or do. It might not be as exciting after the first time, but that doesn’t make it less of an experience. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of sunsets with the right level of clouds, or of bees in flowers.” Charlton reached his other hand over and stroked the back of Eliot’s hand. “And think of what we might see when we get to Fillory, it could have completely changed. It could be things we’ve never seen before. They could have increased the opium levels for all we know.”

“Well _that_ would certainly help make things more interesting.” Eliot looked thoughtful, and Charlton was struck with the urge to run his fingers over Eliot’s jaw.

He was beautiful and Eliot moved like someone who knew it, knew how the world saw him. Beneath all of that was a vulnerability, a feeling that he wasn’t good enough, a feeling that Charlton had seen inside of him so many times. Charlton wished that Eliot could see himself through Charlton’s eyes, into his own sharp mind, the ways he cared in so many ways but didn’t know how to show it without opening up. Charlton swallowed, pulling his hand away and reaching for his water. He didn’t want to change Eliot; he cared about him exactly as he already was. What he wanted is for Eliot to realize that he was more than the sum of years of pain, that he was worthy of so much more.

“You’re thinking really hard. Please tell me it’s not about grass. Although...” Eliot shook his head. “You know, never mind.”

“What?” He didn’t want to tell Eliot what he’d been thinking, didn’t want him to feel embarrassed or overwhelmed. There was time, and he wanted Eliot to feel like he had space.

“I like watching you when you’re thinking,” Eliot admitted. “I missed that.”

Charlton felt something jolt in him at that, at the thought that Eliot had missed anything about him. Before Charlton could reply with no doubt a clumsy reply, James slid in and slid a basket of bread onto the table, followed by a small plate covered in what looked like oil, vinegar, and herbs.

He set the Pepsi in front of Charlton and smiled. “Can I get you anything else right now?”

“I’m good.” Charlton looked over at Eliot, who nodded.

“Don’t eat all the bread at once, you won’t have room for anything else,” Eliot warned. “Trust me, I’m an expert on this.”

Charlton pulled his hand out of Eliot’s to reach for the bread. Over the course of the meal, he ate more bread than he should have, but it helped to make him feel more present and less hungry, even if he felt like he could have licked the entirety of the oil and vinegar off of the plate. He thoroughly soaked each piece of bread it in, savoring the contrasts of the tastes. The Pepsi didn’t taste that much different than a Coke, at least not in any way that he minded. The creamy burrata melted in his mouth, mellow and soft, with a touch of salt on the outside.

When the lasagna arrived, he rotated the plate, looking at it from multiple angles. Square in shape, not very impressive on it’s own, but with layers of red and white in it. From the menu, he’d worked out that there was a tomato based sauce, meat, cheese, and pasta, but the description hadn’t done it justice. Topped with a layer of lightly browned cheese, it made him intensely curious. A sprig of something green laid beside it on the shallow bowl. James had added a flourish of another type of cheese to the top, and had asked him to tell him when to stop. Charlton had no idea how much was polite, so he asked James to stop when it looked like he was slowing down with the cheese grinder.

Eliot on the other hand let James keep putting cheese on the lasagna until it had become a small pile on top. He picked up his glass of wine and held it up. “Let’s toast to good food and an amazing date.”

Charlton picked up his glass of Pepsi and lightly clinked it against Eliot’s glass. He took a sip of the drink. “Does that mean you think this is a good date?”

Eliot hid his expression behind his glass as he sipped it, but Charlton found that he was still smiling when he pulled it away. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He picked up his fork and gestured at Charlton’s food. “Now eat before I eat it for you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Charlton said, setting down his glass. “Then how would you eat the tiramisu?”

“Oh, you’re mean. I like it.”

Charlton lifted his own fork and copied what Eliot did, slicing off a piece of the lasagna with the side of his fork and spear it to put it into his mouth. A startling array of complex flavors burst in his mouth, and his eyes widened. He wanted to describe it to Eliot, but didn’t want to be rude so instead he thoughtfully chewed it, savoring it. The saltier shredded cheese complemented the smooth soft cheese in other layers, perfectly seasoned meat throughout. The pasta yielded easily when he chewed it, but without falling apart in his mouth. He could taste garlic, various herbs, onion, the tartness of the tomato that brought it all together.

He kept chewing and finally looked up at Eliot, making eye contact. Eliot held his fork in the air, waiting to take another bite while he watched Charlton with a smile on his face. Feeling himself blush, he finished chewing and swallowed. “What?”

“I don’t even have to ask you what you think, it’s all over your face.” Eliot smiled. “Literally and figuratively, you have a bit of sauce here.” He indicated the corner of his own mouth with a finger.

Charlton wiped the sauce away with the napkin, still figuring out what to think about what he’d just eaten. “Fuck. That’s _amazing._ ”

“It’s still fun every time you get that word right.” He watched Charlton. “You make me wish I could taste lasagna for the first time again.”

“But would you want to forget all the times that you remember it?” Charlton countered, already starting on the next bite.

Eliot shook his head. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t.” He looked down at the lasagna and took another bite.

This felt good. It felt normal, even if it was far from normal. And right now, after the day it had been, Charlton felt like they both needed something a little normal.

\- - -

  
_Art by[nallybus](https://twitter.com/nallybus/status/1272342742484516870?s=21) as part of a Not Alone Here fundraiser for Black Lives Matter!_


	9. Hold Your Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot has a thing about his wrist. Charlton can never have enough cream in coffee.

Eliot told himself that Charlton couldn’t have the energy to keep taking in everything with this much enthusiasm. He’d worried he’d find it exhausting, but instead he found himself smiling and finding it actually pretty fucking charming. It had been a long time since there hadn’t been an immediate crisis, and it felt like even when there wasn’t, it instead meant he had too much time on his hands to think about all the things he didn’t want to think about (and would not think about now).

Eliot didn’t even mind that he’d only be able to have a couple glasses of wine. He’d considered not driving, sometimes just driving somewhere cleared the head in a way that few other things did. That had started to become more valuable the more that he taught, to have the separation from a day into an evening. It sounded so mundane when he said it that way, so routine. When in reality, there was nothing mundane about teaching the most magically talented students that a prestigious magical university could find.

This, watching Charlton devour lasagna with a polite ferocity that echoed how he approached sex, gave him the right amount of distraction. It broke the routine he’d been stuck in, and he couldn’t help but view the meal, one he’d had so many times before, with a fresh perspective. Charlton’s clear delight showed on his face; this was the same Charlton that had lived in his head, but now instead of focusing only on problems and solutions, he was living for the experiences directly in front of him. Eliot couldn’t help but get a little caught up in that.

Charlton now spent more time contemplating the things around him than the things in Eliot’s head. For which Eliot felt grateful for and fascinated in equal measure. The person that sat at a table in an Italian restaurant seemed more authentically Charlton. His movements, the way he said things, the way he could stop suddenly with some insight or observation. In short, he was good company, and Eliot was glad for it.

After finishing the lasagna, and the parsley garnish (Eliot didn’t have the heart to tell him it was just there for a decoration), Charlton fidgeted with his fork as he looked from his empty plate to Eliot. He leaned forward, setting the fork on the edge of the plate. “I’d eat another one.”

“Not after telling me that I only get one because of dessert.” Eliot regarded Charlton while he sipped at his second glass of red wine. The tartness of it swept over his tongue and he swirled the rest in the glass as he spoke. “This doesn’t feel as weird as I thought it would.”

“It’s only partial weird.” Charlton took a drink of his Coke, but it was down to mostly diluted water now and he made a face, putting it back down. “It’s nice. No crisis.”

Eliot hummed, tapping his fingers against the stem of the glass. He didn’t know what to do when there was no crisis, when there was nothing going wrong. It had been a state he’d struggled with since the others left for the new Fillory, waiting for something that never came. He glanced up and around the room. “I haven’t been here since I came here with Margo years ago. She also loves a good tiramisu.” Likely an understatement, he was pretty sure the last time they had tiramisu she’d said she would murder someone for a tiramisu. She could look threatening with a fork, when she tried. “Maybe we can get Josh to make a Fillory equivalent. If he hasn’t already.” He was missing so much time with them, so many things that they’d experienced together and he wasn’t a part of. What if he got there and they didn’t need him?

Maybe that’s what scared him most of all. For all the time, energy, and pain he’d put into Fillory, what if it had forgotten him?

Charlton pressed a hand on Eliot’s leg under the table and Eliot stilled, realizing he’d been bouncing his leg and shaking the booth.

“Sorry.” He almost never did that anymore, which made him wonder why he was so on edge. Was it this hard to just relax? He put his hand over Charlton’s, trying to focus on that instead of his overwhelming urge for a stronger drink.

“It’s fine, but…” Charlton turned his hand to hold Eliot’s. “Are you okay?”

“Am I ever really okay, Charlton?” Eliot asked, staring down into his wine.

“You tell me.” Charlton squeezed his knee. “I’m not in your head anymore.”

“Lucky for you,” Eliot muttered. He didn’t pull his hand away from Charlton’s, though. “Every day Kady checks that fucking clock because I asked her to. Every day I waited for her to text.” Kady had rightly told him to stop asking and that he’d be the first one to know if anything changed. “Thanks for not just mindlessly placating me.”

“When I could instead make you…” Charlton pushed his lips together. “Use your words?”

Eliot couldn’t help it, he let out a laugh. It felt good. “Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be.”

“I’m no Margo, but I’ll try to keep you on your toes.” Charlton lifted his hand and moved it to rest on Eliot’s wrist. He paused, thinking. “I know this started out as… Is fucked up the right term?”

Eliot processed that and thought through his next words carefully. “Maybe. I know that neither of us chose how we met. If we want to be honest, I shot you.” Eliot winced, remembering the feel of the gun in his hand. He’d thought it had been the right thing to do, and it had never occurred to him that someone else also lived in that body. Just how someone could have missed that he was still alive, too, and nearly had done the same. “It’s refreshing to hear someone say ‘I realize this was fucked up’. Most people would fake it.” Eliot shifted his wineglass to his other hand so he wouldn’t have to move Charlton’s hand, then finished the rest of the wine, determined to switch to coffee.

“I’m not very good at holding things in.”

“I noticed.” Eliot looked down at Charlton’s hand on his arm. “It doesn’t feel fucked up right now but our frame of reference could be broken.”

“That’s true.” Charlton’s fingers brushed against the inside of Eliot’s wrist, his lips parted.

Eliot noticed he did that when he was thinking. He caught his breath at the casually intimate gesture, reminded of their time earlier. There was a want to the way that Charlton’s fingers moved, but also a trust. Charlton had no one to trust for hundreds of years, and Eliot wasn’t sure what to think of him placing that trust in Eliot. It felt like responsibility, but it also felt divine to be touched in a way that didn’t demand anything. He’d missed touch, and he’d missed everything that came with it. “You keep doing that, and we’re missing dessert.”

“For this?” Charlton arched an eyebrow and moved his fingers over Eliot’s pulse.

“Hey, don’t kink shame me,” Eliot warned. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Charlton knew exactly what he was doing with that.

“… wait that one I know.” Charlton thought for a moment, then frowned. “I take it back, you’ll have to explain that one to me.”

“You know how to use the internet.”

James appeared, smiling as always. Eliot enjoyed that he had the same waiter every time he came to Giano’s. His hair had started to gray at the temples over the many years that Eliot been coming here. “Coffee and tiramisu?”

“Yes, please.” Eliot thanked him and James backed away from the table and left.

“We’ll be up all night,” Charlton said, looking at Eliot.

“Maybe that’s the idea,” Eliot countered, holding his face in a serious expression.

To Charlton’s credit, he kept a straight face, with a touch of blush in his cheeks. “That’s… fine, then.”

“Oh, this is going to be fun.” Eliot studied Charlton’s face, really looking at him. He’d taken for granted that the person that had lived in his head was attractive, that Charlton’s face could go between so many expressions, that he missed watching his face change with them. Still, it was still an adjustment to reconciling the voice and personality that had been in his head with the actual living, breathing person in front of him. At least Charlton’s time as Hyman had given him a chance to adjust to the concept before the reality. He thought about earlier, about the sex, about being curled up together afterwards. It had been the first time that he’d felt himself relax in a long time. “It’s nice seeing you somewhere other than in my head.”

“It’s nice to be seen without us both feeling a little crazy.” Charlton cast his eyes around the restaurant. “I’m still getting used to it.”

“When did you get to take this for a spin?”

“Yesterday.” Charlton pulled his hand back and tugged his sleeve up to show it. “I wanted to show you, but it turned out to be a little overwhelming being myself again.”

“That’s why you stayed at Kady’s last night.” That made sense; while Charlton visited the city a couple of times a week, he always came home the same day. He felt a pang that Charlton waited a day to tell him, but also a sense of relief that Charlton had friends outside of him.

Charlton sighed, nodding. “It felt really weird at first, and I wanted to come back to the cottage. But I didn’t want to take it off, and I wasn’t ready for the world to see me.”

“Oh, Charlton,” Eliot murmured. He felt a pang of sadness that Charlton had gone through that and he hadn’t been there to help. “I would have come over. I could have at least distracted you with my charming company.”

“That would have been a lot of distraction.” He moved his arm so that the light reflected off the bracelet. “I wanted to show you. I mean, the amulet is actually yours. I have no idea how Santa knew to give it to you.”

“It’s yours now.” Eliot reached out and ran a finger over the amulet and onto Charlton’s skin. “Maybe he knew I needed a familiar face.” Or maybe Santa knew something about his potential sex life that he didn’t know about. Now that was a strange thought. “Can you tell me what happened when you tried it on?”

Charlton went on to explain how he’d put on the amulet the day before, how he’d shoved his face into a peony because he could smell it without sneezing, and about how much Thai food he ate with Kady. It turned out that Charlton was not allergic to peanuts and that he did, indeed, like panang curry.

“But it was a lot to process,” Charlton finished. “I needed some time to get used to it. I wouldn’t have even let Pete or Kady see if they hadn’t been right there.”

“I can imagine the look on Kady’s face when Pete asked you why there was an upset man in the bathroom.” Eliot shook his head. He wasn’t fond of Pete, but sometimes he had useful information. “How’s it feeling now?”

Charlton shifted in his seat, as if feeling out where he sat. “I’m relieved to have myself back.”

Eliot felt something knot up in his gut, and he forced in a breath. He swallowed and covered up his discomfort by pulling a hand away to pick up his wine. Have myself back. “You seem like you’re adjusting well.” He took a deep drink of the red, hoping that Charlton didn’t notice as he forced an expression.

Charlton studied him for a moment, but didn’t comment on it if he noticed. “I’ve learned so much over the last few months that it softened the impact.” He sighed, gesturing with his free hand. “I wanted to be comfortable with me before I tried to get anyone else comfortable with me.”

“I think we did a lot more than get comfortable. And that’s not a complaint.”

“I hope not.” Charlton smiled at him, his eyes searching Eliot’s face. “I was sitting around all day waiting for you to come back so I could show you. It was really hard to take it off for that long. As if maybe I’d stop feeling like myself. I wanted to show you how it works. Not just have you come home and find… me.”

“It would have been fine,” Eliot pointed out. “Maybe I would have just walked in, said, hi, and noticed it an hour later.” He would have noticed. He’d spent a lot of evenings with Charlton in Hyman form: talking, eating, or just sitting in silence while Charlton read and Eliot graded papers. He had grown used to finding Charlton-Hyman around the cottage, to their conversations, to their friendship. “Personally, I think I would have taken finding you in the living room very well.”

“Or maybe you would have wondered if you were losing it.” Charlton regarded him across the table. “What does tiramisu taste like?”

“And ruin the surprise?”

James swept in with his perfect timing, the piece of tiramisu split across two plates (no doubt he remembered the time that Eliot and Margo tried to split one, and Margo had eaten the whole thing). He also brought two coffees, a pitcher of water, and cream and sugar.

Charlton reached for the cream, not even hesitating. His dislike for black coffee bordered on the ridiculous, and Eliot was already betting that he’d use the entire tiny pitcher of cream for one cup of coffee. But he didn’t question it; Margo would have added a requirement about hazelnut flavoring, especially with tiramisu.

True to Eliot’s expectations, Charlton added cream, sipped on the coffee to make room for more cream, and continued that cycle a few times before he was satisfied with the result.

Eliot didn’t even try to start eating his piece of tiramisu, not yet. Not until he’d see Charlton start eating with that enthusiasm that was starting to become his trademark.

Charlton sliced off a piece with his fork, lifting it to sniff at it. “This doesn’t smell like anything that I’ve smelled.” He pulled it away. “It has some kind of layers. Attractive design on top.”

“It’s better to eat than to describe,” Eliot pointed out. Not that he minded watching Charlton try to describe a tiramisu, but the longer it took Charlton to take that first bite, the longer that Eliot’s own desert sat there waiting.

Charlton primly ate the bite on his fork, thinking as he pushed it around his mouth. His eyes grew wide and he took another bite almost immediately, eating them at the same time. Eliot watched the expressions flit across his face: surprise, appreciation, no doubt analyzing some aspect of the flavor. “It’s smooth but not? It has a really creamy texture here, and is this coffee in here? It melts in my mouth. I haven’t had anything like this!”

He pushed his fork in for a more judicious bite, and Eliot could already see where this was going. He waited for it, not even picking up his own fork yet, as Charlton lifted a huge bite off of the plate and ate it. Bits of cream stuck to his face, got on his fingers. Eliot started laughing, and tapped on his own face where the cream was. “You’ve got some cream right here.”

Charlton wiped the whole area with his napkin, his eyes wide. “How do you drink coffee with something this intense?” He started to reach for his water then moved to the coffee.

“You just do it,” Eliot suggested, inspecting it from all angles. Giano’s recipe never wavered, which is one of the reasons why Eliot loved coming here for so many years. No matter what happened in his life, who came and went, who he’d loved or lost, or what spell had gone horribly wrong that day, he could rely on Giano’s. “I love that every time I come here, it’s still perfect.”

“Is that why they call it comfort food?” Charlton asked, having taken a bite in the span that Eliot was contemplating it.

“That’s exactly why.” Eliot settled deep into his seat and picked up his fork. “No matter what changes, some foods remain the same.”

They ate the tiramisu partially in silence, aside from some noises of appreciation. Eliot had missed the familiarity of something like this. It’s the first meal he’d eaten in a long that he’d had an expectation of, and that the meal lived up to the expectation. It felt good for two things in a day to go right.

He ate more slowly than Charlton, a lot on his mind. This would be an adjustment. Even now, he had to force himself to consciously remember that Charlton was physically present and not just a figment of his imagination. That had worried him, at first, wondering if maybe Charlton was just another aspect of himself. If he had been losing his mind. But he’d never been crazy, he’d never made this up. Instead he’d found an impossible friend.

Eliot smiled and savored every bit of his tiramisu. Maybe rejoining the human race wouldn’t be so bad for either of them.

After Eliot paid the bill they left the restaurant, walking out into the cool air outside. At the crosswalk, Charlton tapped the button once, precisely, and waited. A woman walked up and started hitting the button repeatedly. 

“You only need to press it once,” Charlton pointed out, perhaps a touch smug. “After that it doesn’t do anything.”

The woman glared at him and started to open her mouth. Eliot stepped forward and put his arm through Charlton’s, rolling his eyes. “Don’t mind him, he was doing the exact same thing earlier.”

The light turned and they crossed the street. Eliot glanced over at Charlton and found him smiling. “You look awfully happy for someone that almost got told to fuck off over a crosswalk button.”

“There’s always room to change your mind.” Charlton dropped his hand and brushed his fingertips over Eliot’s palm. A silent question, a permission.

He’d walked these streets holding someone’s hand, of course. But something in him nagged that he wasn’t supposed to be holding someone’s hand, that this wasn’t for him. He hadn’t had this since Quentin, in the mosaic.

He silenced that line of thought by taking Charlton’s offer, by entwining his fingers with his. He didn’t know how to be anything for anyone, but Charlton wasn’t demanding anything from him. He’d left outs for Eliot to take, and while Eliot appreciated it, he also wished he’d stop giving him outs. It had been too easy in the past for Eliot to take those outs, those moments.

Right now, maybe that’s what he needed, to know that no matter what happened, he’d be able to be safe. And he wasn’t alone in figuring things out. Tonight, he’d take that as the gift it was.


	10. Like A Heartbeat Skip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlton doesn’t bounce his reality check. Eliot says thank you.

The windows of the cottage glowed with a soft golden light, welcoming them back. It reminded Charlton of a house that his mother brought him to when he was a child. A late-night birth, where she needed his help to watch the younger children. The thought dredged up old memories, and a sense of longing he’d forgotten he had. It had been a long, difficult night, and by the time they’d left the house, the sun had started to rise over the hills. He held her hand as they’d left, barely awake as they moved back to his mother’s horse and wagon. Too tired to ride on the horse, he curled up in the wagon, the wheels creaking in a rhythm and the lanterns swaying on poles above him until he fell asleep. A world away, lifetimes away. He wished he could still sleep like that, without the cares that come with becoming much, much older.

“I’m waiting for you to accidentally think out loud,” Eliot noted, startling him out of the thoughts.

“It’s nothing that exciting.” Charlton looked over at Eliot and studied the shape of his nose, following the curve of it and lingering for a moment on his lips. He’d seen it more times than he could count, but there was something distinctly different about the details of Eliot’s face now that they were standing a couple of feet apart. The lights from the house illuminated his face, and Charlton held his breath for a moment, watching.

He’d gotten so used to talking to Eliot, to their late night talks when Eliot couldn’t sleep, when Charlton had been in his head. He’d viewed Eliot as a friend, as someone he cared about. Seeing all the pieces of him that he had, knowing everything that he did, he felt drawn to Eliot in a way that was hard to explain, even to himself. He knew so much about Eliot, but knowing about someone wasn’t the same as knowing them, as being a part of memories with them. He let out his breath and laid his hand on Eliot’s arm.

“Are you checking that I’m real?” Eliot teased.

“I’m checking that I’m real.”

“Oh, you’re _quite_ real.”

They followed the pathway to the house, the cool evening breeze blowing over his skin. “There was a time that I hated the cold,” he noted, even as the cold air prickled his face. “I don’t mind it so much now.”

“Oh, you will.” Eliot chuckled. “The winters here will freeze that right out of you.”

“I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.” He rubbed at the arm of his sweater. “Is it just me or is it warmer here than everywhere else?”

“Brakebills has that effect. It makes dressing for the weather absolutely dreadful.”

The door opened as they approached, part of the series of spells that had been added to make the cottage more accessible since he’d moved in. His assignment here remained temporary, until they tested him to determine his discipline. He’d been offered a room in some of the other student housing, but he’d preferred to stay where he was if possible. For now it had been allowed, at least until other students needed the space. By that point, it was likely Eliot would also need to move out of there, although Charlton hoped that Eliot had the option to stay as long as he was comfortable. There had been enough upheaval without adding a housing change to it.

The inside of the cottage was blessedly warm, cozy, and familiar. He closed the door behind them and stood for a moment, listening to the silence of the house. Clocks ticked, the refrigerator hummed, small noises that did little to fill the space. The quiet pressed in, more so framed with vague memories of parties here from Eliot. Todd was nowhere in sight, which was fine with Charlton as the last thing he wanted was for Todd to catch them here. They’d never hear the end of it.

He looked over to the dining room table and found that the pizza was gone, and no evidence of it being there remained. “Do you think Todd ate the pizza?”

“Someone ate it, and I’m sure it wasn’t Hyman.” Eliot took Charlton’s hand, his thumb running over his knuckles. “Your hands are cold.” Eliot took both of Charlton’s hands in his, warming them.

It made Charlton feel warm not only in his hands but to his core. He slumped slightly, leaning against the table. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands had been until they started to warm.

Eliot leaned in and kissed him, and Charlton didn’t hesitate. He let go of Eliot’s hands and moved his hands to his waist, returning the kiss. He’d lost track of the number of times he thought about how it might feel to be right here, and then he worried about that thought. So many people had just wanted something from Eliot, and while Charlton wanted something, it wasn’t something that wanted from Eliot. It’s something he wanted for Eliot: to have a chance to be himself.

He committed the kiss to memory, holding it in his mind like the beautiful thing that it was. Eliot’s lips on his felt wonderful, and Charlton moved his hands around to Eliot’s back to pull him closer.

Eliot moved to wrap his arms around Charlton, pulling him up against him. This felt good, it felt right, and Charlton could feel Eliot relax into it. He ran a hand lower down Eliot’s back, moving up under his jacket to rest at the small of his back. He wanted this, he wanted Eliot. He wanted to go upstairs and make love until he stopped overthinking every single thing about this, about what he was thinking or feeling or knowing. He wanted that so badly he could feel it, but his mind buzzed and his thoughts felt foggy.

Through all of those memories of Eliot’s, the ones Eliot had showed him, the ones that he’d seen and still remembered, this had been all that Charlton had wanted to do. Watching those memories, watching the pain on Eliot’s face, even though he’d just met him, had been difficult. Through all of Eliot’s subsequent pain, Charlton had just wanted to put his arms around Eliot and hold him, just to let him know that he was there. Not because they were stuck together, but because Charlton wanted to be there for Eliot. It made Charlton’s heart ache that he couldn’t be there for Eliot, but now he held him in his arms and they were _his_ arms and Eliot was here, holding him too, and Charlton was struck with the overwhelming feeling that he wanted this to work out. Even if it didn’t become anything more, he wanted to be here for this, for Eliot, for what came next.

Pulling away, Eliot leaned in by Charlton’s ear. “Are you alright? You froze up.”

Charlton nodded, his face flushing as he leaned into Eliot to tuck his head against the other’s neck. He was fine. He was more than fine. His heart thudded in his chest, and he didn’t know if it was the coffee or the prospect of a repeat of earlier. 

“You’ve been you for less than a day,” Eliot pointed out, his hand moving to cup the back of his head. “I know how much being myself again messed me up. I want to know how you’re doing.”

Charlton let himself fall into the hug, into the comfort of it. Eliot’s hands stroked his hair, and Charlton thought about how much he’d missed touch. Not just being touched, but offering it to another. A thousand years alone. A flood of memories cam with that thought and he pushed them away.

“I’m fine.” Charlton paused for a moment. “Actually, I don’t know.” He drew in a breath. “I don’t know if I know how to exist,” he finally admitted. There. It felt good to say it. Over a thousand years of nothing, of being nothing, of being nowhere. How could he possibly imagine being something, anything, to someone else, when he couldn’t even tell himself who he was supposed to be, who he was?

“There’s no easy answer to that.” Eliot’s voice shook and Charlton moved his hand along Eliot’s back. “I’m still struggling with it.” His arms felt strong as he held Charlton. “But I felt very real today, and so do you. Hurts like a bitch sometimes.”

“I’ll take hurt over the alternative,” Charlton murmured. He pulled back and regarded Eliot, his dark eyes, the vulnerability that snuck when Eliot was being honest. Reaching out, he brushed one of Eliot’s dark curls out of his face. He let his hand trail over Eliot’s cheek, along his jawline, over his beard. “You do feel very real.”

An expression crossed Eliot’s face, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. “I could get used to this.”

Charlton opened his mouth to reply but instead felt himself drawing a huge involuntary breath. To his horror, his mouth opened into a yawn that he couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to sleep, he just wanted to stay here with Eliot. He just wanted to _be_.

Eliot put his hand over Charlton’s. “That means I’m boring you, or you’re exhausted.”

“You’re not boring me.”

Eliot leaned in and kissed Charlton’s cheek. “As much as I’d love to bang you into tomorrow morning, I actually give a shit. Come on, let’s get you upstairs.” He paused. “Your room or mine?”

Charlton ached to sleep next to Eliot, to be there when he woke up. To be that close to him, all night, to hold Eliot and stay with him. To somehow soothe that loneliness that he knew Eliot felt. But if they were going to make this work, Charlton needed to know what being himself felt like before he could be there for Eliot. He knew that. “I haven’t slept in my own bed as me,” he said finally. “I should try it on my own. I don’t know how I’ll sleep, and I’m not ready for you to see me sleep like a disaster.” He winced. “I fall out of bed.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that I do excel at curling up around people, which would keep you in bed.”

“I’d like that,” Charlton admitted. An understatement.

They started for the stairs, Charlton keeping his hand on the railing as he ascended. It _had_ been a long day, when he stopped to think about it. In the span of a single afternoon, he’d revealed himself to Eliot, had ended up in bed with Eliot, used magic for the first time on Earth, gone on a first date on Earth, eaten lasagna for the first time.

He felt himself waver at the top of the stairs, and Eliot caught him as he swayed. He guided him down the hall to Charlton’s own room, opening the door and helping him in. Charlton sat down hard on the edge of the bed, trying to organize his thoughts as Eliot pulled up a chair and started taking his shoes off.

“I can take my own shoes off,” he muttered, starting to pull his foot away.

“You can hardly walk,” Eliot scoffed. “Let me having my stripping fantasy again.”

Charlton closed his eyes, smiling. “You can have all the fantasies you want after I get some sleep.”

“Oh, getting saucy are you?” Eliot’s hands were confident yet careful, helping Charlton out of his clothes and into bed.

Charlton rolled between the sheets, careful to make sure the amulet remained in place. It fit his wrist perfectly, and he noticed it less the longer he wore it. He rested his head on the pillow but kept his eyes open as Eliot sat on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair.

“This has been a good day,” Eliot murmured. He was silent for a moment, his hand tracing the edge of Charlton’s ear. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” As far as Charlton knew, he hadn’t done anything special. Except maybe spring a really sudden proposition on the best friend he had, which had put him in a horribly uncomfortable position.

“I’d hardly call any of the positions uncomfortable,” Eliot teased.

“Fuck,” Charlton muttered, closing his eyes. Eventually he’d figure that out, how to not speak out loud.

Eliot’s fingers trailed over Charlton’s neck. “Thanks for taking a chance on me.”

“You took a chance on me, too.” Charlton felt his breathing becoming more even. The weight of the blanket and the contrasting lightness of Eliot’s touch soothed him. The sheets felt different now, softer, warmer. He wiggled his toes, scratching his toenails along the material.

Eliot leaned in and kissed Charlton’s forehead. His nose pressed against Charlton’s hair. “You should sleep, you can barely keep your eyes open.” He stood, his weight lifting from the bed, and Charlton heard the door close.

He stretched under the blankets, smiling. The feel of the sheets against his skin was more comforting here, and he pulled the comforter up under his chin. He thought he’d fall asleep thinking about everything that happened over the course of the day, but instead he found himself so tired that it was only minutes before he slipped into a deep, exhausted sleep. 


	11. I Know It Isn’t Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot doesn’t take the last drink.

Eliot left Charlton’s room, closing the door behind him. He drew a deep breath, leaning against the wall across the hall. He didn’t know if he felt ready for this, for someone to care. He meant what he said to Charlton, that he didn’t have to pretend, but he felt like he still did pretend. He couldn’t help it, it had been ingrained in him for so long. He wasn’t always going to be able to let those guards he’d carefully built down, not yet, but he’d felt so many moments over the course of the day when he felt lighter inside, properly alive, and that felt marvelous. It felt good to laugh, it felt good to focus on something that wasn’t the pressing feeling of loneliness. He’d had moments of feeling like himself again, and they were few but they shone through and reminded himself that he’s still inside.

Those words brought back a flood of memories, of telling Q that he was still alive. He hadn’t known how to tell Charlton how much it hurt to talk about Q. It hurt to remember only pieces of a lifetime they’d shared together, to never know what the gaps were, to know he’d let that go. The only thing that hurt worse than thinking about Q was not thinking about Q, letting him be forgotten when he’d meant so much. Those memories were one thing that Charlton had not seen, due no doubt to the strange way that it was against all laws of time and space for Eliot to have remembered that time with Q. And that, right there, was the pain of it: a memory that endured despite there being no way that he should have been able to remember it. Only two people knew what that was like, and one of them was gone.

He cast a glance down the hallway, where it turned a corner and led to one last door. He hadn’t walked down the hallway on this side of the house since Q died; he never had reason to. With none of his friends still here except for Charlton, he never needed to visit the rooms on this side of the house. He hadn’t even been to Charlton’s room except for a couple of times to help move furniture and get him settled, and anything past that…

Eliot pushed himself away from the wall and stared down the hallway, taking a step. He passed Alice’s and Todd’s rooms along the way. Margo’s room was next to his, they’d taken the two largest rooms with a shared bathroom between them so that they didn’t have to explain themselves to each other. It suited them fine, and it meant that once in a while, he had someone to scrub his back if he asked nicely. He missed platonic showers with Margo, one of the few places they had honest conversations in the cottage, where no one could overhear them. Except perhaps Hyman, but Eliot and Margo had been using the warding trick for many years when they didn’t want to be heard. It seemed to expand to Hyman as well.

Alice’s room, he pushed the door open just a little. It wasn’t left locked, and he looked around the room, taking in the details. The soft colors, the stuffed unicorn on her bed. This felt strange, being here without her. Remembering how he’d hurt her, and later their trek up the mountain together, mourning Q. They’d been frustrated, tired, stressed out. And after they’d said goodbye, they’d held each other crying. He pulled the door closed, and turned the corner to reveal the last door in the hallway. Physically the furthest from him, in a strange commentary on fate and circumstances, stood the last doorway in the corridor. It read “Quentin Coldwater” on the door, with a small handwritten sign under it. Room scheduled for fall clean out, do not remove any item from this room.

Eliot reached up and put his hand on the locked doorknob. He tried to turn the knob anyway. A light static feeling emitted from it, making his hand tingle. The physical manifestation of the wards that had been put up to keep anyone out until the school could properly deal with what remains of the life of Quentin Makepeace Coldwater. For the best, Eliot supposed, given that entering the room would only remind him of the aching hole in his heart and life.

The metal under his hand felt as cold as the feeling in his heart. Would that be all of them someday, reduced to a room full of possessions, waiting for someone to find time to go through them? Who would come for Eliot, if not his friends?

Nobody else would come for him. They were each other’s family, they were all they had.

He should call Julia, maybe she’d be able to help. It should be one of them, someone that Quentin cared about and who cared about him.

With a heavy sigh, Eliot traced the letters on the nameplate on the door, then turned around and headed back down the hall to his own room. He passed Charlton’s door again, and wished he’d told Charlton that his door was open if Charlton wanted.

Once he reached his room, he removed and carefully hung up his jacket and his tie. The rest of his clothes he put into the laundry bin to do over the weekend.

Guilt filled him. Would he only end up hurting Charlton because of this huge wound inside of him that hurt every day? Would he continue to be a mess and just take Charlton down with him? Charlton deserved the opportunity to enjoy life, to understand it as a whole, not just Eliot’s slanted view of the world. He didn’t want to lose a friendship with someone who accepted so many messed up things about him, for the sake of his dick and his desire to be near someone he could talk to.

He pulled on a pair of comfortable, stylish dark blue pants, then removed his eyeliner. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. Stripped down to almost nothing, now his outside matched how he felt inside. He snagged his red robe from where he’d left it earlier and pulled it on.

He backed up and sat down hard in the bed, putting his head in his hands. The bed, meticulously made, yielded as he sat. Charlton must have done that when he came upstairs to change, because Eliot certainly hadn’t.

When Charlton looked at Eliot, it felt like he saw Eliot. Not who Eliot pretends to be, not the Eliot he carefully crafted for himself, but the Eliot under it all. Frustration with a touch of fear filled Eliot; why couldn’t this just be simple? Stick to the sex and not worry about the rest.

But this was Charlton. Charlton who had waited a thousand years for someone, for anyone, and could be just latching onto Eliot. The same Charlton who could have chosen anyone, but stated that he would be there, that he’d stay, that he knows Eliot. A thousand years and it was Eliot who he let in, Eliot who he touched, Eliot who he kissed on the stairs.

And the sex… Charlton had started out clumsy, and his skills with undoing clothing needed work. But there had been a sweetness, a tenderness, underscored with a determination. They’d found a balance of give and take, ebb and flow, and while it was far from the best sex he’d had, he’d rarely had sex with someone who made him feel honestly cherished, important. Connected. Eliot longed for seeing how it would go over time, how it would feel when they hit their stride with each other.

Maybe it was all the shared time together, or that he didn’t have to feel self conscious with Charlton. It meant a lot to him that Charlton had been brave, that he’d asked.

Eliot didn’t know if the scars in his soul would ever heal, but he wanted to be brave, too. He had to be brave.

He’d thought his plans for the night would have had them both in bed again, but Charlton had looked profoundly exhausted and Eliot cared too much to let Charlton stay up any later. As much as his cock protested going to bed alone.

His mind kept going over all of the parts of the day. Charlton’s smiles when he tried something new, the way he approached new concepts with energy, the way he wasn’t afraid to reach out and touch Eliot casually. Small touches that didn’t ask for anything, but gave everything. Charlton’s honest joy at the world around him, even after everything he’d been through. That gave Eliot some hope.

But under it all, the thread of pain remained, the thread of guilt, of Q dying, and of Eliot wondering if he could ever be whole enough to be what anyone would want, if he could feel enough about someone again. Some things couldn’t be mended. His brain felt like a thousand knives reminding him of the mistakes he’d made. Had he not been able to go to Fillory because he’d left it behind? He had helped someone who tried to destroy it? He had left Margo behind, his Bambi, and left Fillory in shock, unable to process it. He knew she was sacrificing herself and that he may never see her again, but he didn’t believe it in his heart, while it was happening. He should have taken her place, given that her spellcasting was more important to recreate Fillory anyway. 

He reached into a drawer and pulled out the bottomless flask, uncapping the stopper and swirling the whiskey under his nose. He breathed it in, the familiarity of it, the promise of it. Whiskey, you see, was simple. It didn’t ask questions, and it didn’t ask you to do anything. That suited Eliot fine. He took a deep drink of the amber liquid, letting it burn down his throat. Familiar, warm, a balm to his raw thoughts.

He got into bed and leaned against the pillows, clutching the flask in his hand and taking another drink. This drink was to numb the pain of Quentin’s death. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, not really, but if he started with it, by the end it would help, he figured. Would he ever be over it? Losing someone after a lifetime together? He only remembered vague snippets, moments, hardly anything except the nagging memory of happiness, of being more carefree, of waking up next to Quentin.

He drank to the Fillorians that they’d lost, to Zelda who died protecting the Library, to Penny-40 who was an asshole but was their asshole, to poor sweet Benedict who just wanted to make maps. He drank to Sebastian, Rupert, whatever the fuck his name was, who had told himself that he did everything for love. Eliot knew the truth: Seb did it because he couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.

Every drink took the edge off a little more, made it hurt a little less, but made him think more. It sanded the edges away, the imperfections, the slivers that caught in his skin. He drank to the living, too, the ones that he couldn’t see. To Margo who should be here right now to tell him to ovary up. To Alice, who had climbed that mountain with him to say goodbye to Q. To Fen, who never should have been his wife but remained his friend. He looked down at the ring on his finger, and wondered if the marriage was still valid now that Fillory was technically gone. He drank for Josh, who would no doubt have left something far better than cheese and crackers down in the kitchen if he went down to look.

They all seemed so far away, even more so now that the alcohol had started to set in. He could feel his limbs growing heavy, and he stopped worrying about if he’d be able to sleep or not. He’d sleep, eventually. The pain had started to fade in favor of a physical feeling that pulled him away from so many of his thoughts. If he tried to think too hard, the thoughts slipped through his fingers like grains of sad, splitting onto the floor in haphazard piles.

Most days, he felt so broken. He’d died in different ways, different times. He drank for the helpless, scared child in Indiana. He drank for the Eliot that wouldn’t hesitate to party to avoid his problems. He drank for the Eliot that hid inside of him while the Monster terrorized his friends on the outside. He drank for the Eliot left to pick up the pieces.

He lifted the flask to his lips to take one more drink, for Charlton, for the mess he’d make of Charlton’s life the first chance he got. No one cared about Eliot and came out of it alive, with no scars. Charlton would be a student soon, too, which would complicate everything about this. They’d have to live in different locations, and they’d have to keep what was between them discrete, for both their sakes. It’s not like a student and a teacher had never been in a relationship, but it would require the most strict separation of them in regards to Charlton’s teaching.

The cold metal rested against his lower lip and he wanted to take that last drink. He thought about Charlton laying in bed, his eyes closed and a smile on his face. The way Charlton’s hair felt between his fingers, the softness of it, the warmth of Charlton’s skin. Charlton’s fingers along his wrist. The way he moved above Eliot. His awkward laughter, his wide eyes at something as simple as a neon light. The way his hands moved when he explained something.

He’d come to think of Charlton as someone who didn’t really exist, not truly, except in his head. He knew that Charlton had always been real, had always been someone, but the concept of someone who didn’t flinch away from the worst of Eliot… Well, it didn’t help anchor the situation in reality, that much was certain.

Through the time he looked like Hyman, they talked almost every day. The movements were Charlton, the words, but nothing else was the same. It made it hard to open up to him, to go back to the way things were, because too much had changed too quickly. And now, Charlton was alive, had a body, was himself, and had offered something to Eliot, something Eliot wasn’t sure he’d earned.

Being this close to someone felt terrifying, in it’s way. He’d crafted his own external image carefully, with no one knowing his worst secrets. Secrets he hadn’t even told Q, at least not that he remembered. He’d covered up his feeling of not being good enough by being as obviously the best as he could be. He’d disappointed his family, and he was afraid of disappointing Charlton.

He stared at the flask in his hands, and the thought of taking another drink made something in him hurt. He wanted it, but he needed to draw a line. Somewhere. This numbed the pain, but it didn’t made him feel good. Worthy. Happy.

 _You need to give yourself permission,_ Charlton told him.

Permission to not know what he wants. Permission to grieve. Permission to be happy. Permission to be alive.

He pulled the flask away and capped it, setting it by the bed. “Well that’s enough of that for the night.”

The flask stared at him, daring him to take another drink, and he reached out and snatched it from the top of the nightstand. He opened the drawer and dropped it back in, slamming the drawer shut. He got into bed and laid down, turning off the light and staring at the ceiling. His head swam, the whiskey flowing through him.

Today he had felt normal, even happy. Eliot Waugh didn’t rate normal.

But that didn’t mean that he didn’t deserve to have something good.


	12. Canyons Broken By Cloud (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlton negotiates new terms. Eliot rejects any rating system.

Charlton found himself in the living room and froze, looking around before he took a half a step forward, patting at his chest. He still wore the sweater he wore during the day, which he’d been certain he and Eliot had removed before he’d slept. He didn’t know how he got here; did he accidentally travel? Was he dreaming? Was everything else that happened today a dream?

All of it happened; that much he was sure of. He’d had vivid dreams but he couldn’t have dreamed lasagna, tiramisu, or the way Eliot kissed him goodnight.

“You’re not here,” Hyman noted, and Charlton turned around to find Hyman sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other. “Now that you’ve fixed the wards, you can astral project. I helped it along a little.”

Charlton stared, his eyebrows raising. “Oh. I didn’t know you can do that.” Unnerving, to say the least. Learning to astral project was one thing, but finding himself doing without trying was a different matter entirely. He moved to the couch and sat down on the other end of it, folding his hands in his lap. “Is everything okay?”

“I can’t complain. I go where I want, and I do what I want.” Hyman grinned. “Good job on the traveling. A little rocky, but I think it’s like that for all of us. You didn’t break any furniture. Yet.” He regarded Charlton, gesturing with a hand. “So this is how you actually look.”

Charlton flinched, wondering if he’d offended Hyman. Keeping Hyman’s appearance had never been part of the deal, but it also wasn’t something they had thought of at the time. “Are you mad? I didn’t mind yours, but this feels like… me.” He held his hands up, looking at them. In his astral form, he still wore the amulet, and he ran a finger over its surface, using the shape of it to anchor himself.

Hyman studied Charlton for a moment. “It’s probably better. I’m not sure what me having sex with Eliot would mean.” Hyman leaned back on the couch, resting his arm along the top of it. “So, we made a deal.”

“We did.” Charlton drew in a breath. He didn’t want to talk about this, talk about Eliot or about this strange arrangement that he wouldn’t have even agreed to if Margo’s life hadn’t been in danger. He’d done it as a chance to save Margo, no matter what the cost had been. At the time, Charlton hadn’t wanted to make any kind of deal, he’d just wanted to save Margo. He’d made that deal for ultimately, nothing. And now that he’d started something with Eliot, he’d brought Eliot into that arrangement, too.

“I’m going to tell you to forget about the deal.” Hyman picked at the edge of the couch. “With Eliot warding me, I can’t see any of the really interesting stuff. And that’s no fun.” He studied Charlton. “I like you two together. You’re good to him, and he likes having you around more than he admits.”

That caught Charlton’s attention and he paused. “He does? How do you know?”

“Oh, I hear things. I’m not going to tell.” Hyman looked around the room. “Much. I’m not going to tell much.” He looked back to Charlton. “I think he slept better when he had you to talk to.”

Charlton processed that. There had been nights where Eliot had awakened during a nightmare, times when Charlton tried to not be present. Partially because he didn’t want to risk living a nightmare of the Nameless, but also because nightmares and dreams tended to expose something unconscious, something that Charlton didn’t feel he should be privy to. So, he hadn’t been. He’d kept himself somewhere else.

Once when Eliot awakened in the middle of the night, he’d laid there in bed, and Charlton had only been aware because Eliot had said his name. Charlton had sat in the chair across from Eliot, and Eliot asked him to stay there until he fell asleep again. Not knowing what to do, Charlton had said yes, and had sat there across from Eliot, waiting. It happened two more times; one of them, Eliot had said nothing, just rolled on his side and watched Charlton. Another time, they’d talked for a few minutes. The final time, Charlton had just talked to Eliot, letting him know he was fine.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Hyman continued. “But tell Eliot he can ward me out of the sex if I get the other drama.”

Charlton opened his mouth to reply, than shut it. He didn’t know what other drama there was, but he retained enough of Eliot’s memories that he could imagine. “What if there’s not enough drama?”

Hyman tapped his fingers on the edge of the couch. “There’s always drama in this place.” He got to his feet and held out his hand for Charlton to shake. “Do we have a deal? If not, I’m fine to keep watching the sex-“

“No that’s fine,” Charlton said quickly, wincing. It was now just starting to set in how much Hyman had seen. This was a better arrangement, especially as it wasn’t just about the sex, it was also about being able to feel like whatever this was between him and Eliot would be a bit more their own business. He’d still have to talk to Eliot, but it seemed like the better option of the two. He shook Hyman’s hand.

“I trust that you’ll use that body as intended.” Hyman grinned and then disappeared.

Charlton blinked in the dim light of the room, his body still entrenched in his bed and his mind back where he belonged. He was, at least, not laying on the hard floor, which he’d take. A surprise, but a welcome one. Not that his sleep was uneventful; one pillow was knocked on the floor, another one he curled around, his head barely on it. He pulled the blanket that had fallen halfway onto the floor back onto the bed, tucking his legs under it.

Even with the odd intrusion of Hyman, Charlton felt well rested. A restful night’s sleep wasn’t something he had in a very long time, and he reveled in it. He didn’t want to get up, not from this warm, cozy spot that he’d found himself in. But they had work to do to find Fillory, and despite everything that he’d eaten the night before, he felt hungry again. Maybe traveling made him more hungry?

The conversation with Hyman gave him some small peace of mind, mostly in regards to how clear it was that, at least at some point, he’d helped Eliot.

He rolled on his back and closed his eyes, smiling. He’d travelled, and somehow managed to astral project (even though that seemed like a cheat). Somehow it had worked, leaving him now with a new magical ability unlike any other he’d had before. Under any other circumstances, he’d be trying it out constantly, but Penny’s words had stuck with him. Now that he stopped to think about it, he probably should have been more afraid of falling asleep given the possibility of accidentally traveling.

When he’d been in Fillory though, he’d had exceptional control over his magic. It’s possible that trait continued on to traveling, except that everything he’d managed so far showed the opposite. He’d started doing illusion magic while still a child, so he’d been able to learn fast. He understood it to be similar to how languages were learned, that they were easier the younger a person was because of the flexibility of their mind.

A sinking feeling settled in him, and he lifted his hands, looking at them. The tattoos were still a surprise, and he stared hard at them, feeling like his hands looked and felt like his and yet changed. Was it possible that his mind, now over a thousand years old, now didn’t have the flexibility to learn? Could it be that all he remembered about how it felt to use magic was still in the gaps in his memory, the parts of him that he’d hid away from the Nameless for so long that he’d locked them away and still hadn’t found them? Or was this a side effect of being on a different world with altered Circumstances?

His appetite evaporated and he sat up, shaking out his hands to relax them. It didn’t hurt to try. None of the magic he’d been able to do had been destructive, so it seemed like it would be safe. He started with the first spell he’d ever learned, which was a scattering of butterflies made of light. A spell he wouldn’t attempt in front of Eliot, given that butterflies looked like moths and Charlton could remember bits and pieces of that.

He could see that his form wasn’t correct, something in the flexibility of his fingers. Stretching his hands out, he curled his fingers inward a few times and tried again. As he worked through the motions, a glow of purple light shimmered along his hands. Encouraged, he moved his hands more surely, feeling the magic move through him. A flutter of a wing on the tip of his fingers, and he pulled harder, interlacing his fingers into the final movements.

The light flickered and went out, and Charlton slumped, putting his hands down. Not yet. Or, not on Earth. Or worse, he’d lost it entirely. Frustration filled him and he held his hands in fists for a moment before dropping them down hard onto the blankets.

Sighing, he glanced at the clock. It was earlier than he planned, but he’d take it. He may as well get up and start the day.

A half hour later, he’d taken the best shower of his brief days on Earth, and had gotten dressed. Hyman’s words stuck with him as he went through his morning routine, making him think about how much Hyman no doubt saw in the cottage. Charlton wondered if he should be more concerned by the concept of a ghost that was watching everything that went on, but he supposed he wasn’t much different in Eliot’s head. In truth, Charlton was surprised that Eliot took it all as well as he did.

He started down the stairs then stopped, looking at Eliot’s door. While the coffee would hold if Eliot didn’t wake up soon, the food wouldn’t. As much as it was food, anyway; Charlton hadn’t mastered cooking in an Earth kitchen, and all of his attempts to do so just made him nostalgic for Fillory. It’s one of the things he missed the most, knowing how to do what he needed to.

While he didn’t want to interrupt Eliot’s sleep, Hyman’s words stuck with him. Charlton went to Eliot’s door and knocked softly, once, waiting for a reply. If he didn’t get one, he’d head downstairs. If Eliot was that tired, he’d leave him to it.

There was a muffled “come in” and Charlton opened the door, peering in.

“I’m about to head downstairs to make coffee,” he said, leaning through the door. “I wasn’t sure if I should wake you up.”

Eliot still lay in bed, the blankets pulled halfway up his torso. He looked like he’d fallen asleep in his robe and gotten half tangled in it. “Already awake.” He didn’t sit up, but he did shift to look at Charlton, still standing in the door. Stretching, he rolled over on his side, propping himself up on his elbow. “I’ll get up.” He yawned and Charlton felt bad for waking him up. He patted the bed in front of him. “Come over here.”

Charlton entered and closed the door behind him, uncertain what Eliot wanted, especially given that he postponed the prospect of coffee. His bare feet whispered over the polished wood floor until he reached the plush rug next to the bed. He pressed his toes into the fibers of the rug, just to let them tickle his feet. He sat down on the edge of the bed where Eliot indicated, looking down at Eliot. “I was on the way to make you coffee,” he repeated.

“Coffee can wait,” Eliot murmured, putting an arm around Charlton’s waist and curling up against his back. His hand rested on Charlton’s stomach and Charlton swallowed, the touch feeling so comfortable, intimate. He looked down at Eliot, who closed his eyes and put his other hand on Charlton’s leg.

Now he couldn’t move, but he didn’t mind. He brushed a stray curl out of Eliot’s face, then put his hand on the back of Eliot’s head, digging his fingers in to massage his scalp.

“Now I never want to get out of bed.” Eliot relaxed, but still held his arm around Charlton’s waist tightly. Like he thought he’d get up at leave, which he had to do eventually, but the coffee wasn’t going anywhere. Moments like these were worth the time, and Charlton focused on the warmth of Eliot’s mess of curls. He could smell the faint remains of whiskey, and realized that Eliot had been drinking the night before. He didn’t know what to think of that, of why he would have been drinking.

“How’d you sleep?” Eliot asked, his hand moving over Charlton’s shirt. A part of him felt on fire, yet another part felt content, full of a feeling he couldn’t quite place.

“I haven’t slept that well in a thousand years,” Charlton admitted, putting his hand over Eliot’s. He’d thought about this, every time Eliot was scared, vulnerable, lonely. Now that he could be here, now that he had a body, and hands, and a voice, he didn’t know what to do with it. He ran a thumb over Eliot’s temple, past the small birthmark near his hairline.

“It was probably the sex,” Eliot teased, opening his eyes to look up at Charlton. He studied him for a moment. “I didn’t notice how red your hair was when you were just in my head.”

“It ends up brown unless I’m in the sun.” Charlton shifted onto one side so he could lean against Eliot, putting an arm over him.

“Well, not all of it,” Eliot noted, reaching up to touch the hair in front of Charlton’s ear. Charlton felt himself blushing as he put his head down against Eliot’s shoulder, understanding the other implication from Eliot’s tone. Eliot’s soft chuckle shook them both. “I’m not sorry for that.” His hand curled against Charlton’s leg. “How can you possibly be comfortable?”

“I’ve become really good at sprawling.” Charlton breathed in, feeling Eliot against him. It wasn’t comfortable, he supposed, but he didn’t mind it to be close to Eliot. There had been so many times when he’d wished he could be there with him, and now that he was here, he couldn’t complain about being a little uncomfortable. He idly massaged Eliot’s scalp, watching Eliot’s face as he did.

“If I were a cat I’d purr. This is nice.” He sighed, closing his eyes as Charlton ran his hands through his hair again. “I’d forgotten what’s like to…” He trailed off.

Charlton understood. He already knew. To have someone there, to be touched, to be safe. Or at least that’s what he thought it was. “I’ve forgotten, too.”

“Mmmm remembering together sounds nice.” Eliot didn’t open his eyes.

“I talked to Hyman,” Charlton started. “I guess I can astral project in my sleep.”

Eliot snorted. “If you tell me that he’s given us a rating for yesterday, I’m warding this whole place and moving out.”

“Quite the opposite. He says he’d rather not see what’s in the bedroom, and instead not be warded in the rest of the house.” Charlton winced. “He says he likes the drama. Is that an okay arrangement with him, or should I tell him the other way was fine?”

Eliot smirked. “Oh god no. You made the right deal. It’s not the audience that bothers me, it’s the lack of privacy.” Eliot shifted to look up at Charlton. “I wish there didn’t have to be deals at all, but without that, you wouldn’t be here.”

Charlton slumped at the reminder of how tenuous his existence truly was. “That’s true.”

Eliot pulled his hands back and moved his hands in an intricate gesture, Charlton assumed to ward the room. He curled back around Charlton. “You just took a shower.” He reached out and trailed his hand along the waistband of Charlton’s pants.

Charlton drew a deep breath, not sure what this was leading to but he didn’t mind. “I did.”

“That’s good.” Eliot withdrew his arm from around Charlton, looking up at him. “I’m not in a hurry for coffee or breakfast.”

The implication was clear in Eliot’s face, and Charlton swallowed, nodding. “Me, either.”

Eliot uncurled and they shifted positions so that Charlton leaned against Eliot’s pillows, his heart thudding in his chest. Eliot kept eye contact with him, his hazel eyes steady on Charlton’s face as he lowered himself between Charlton’s legs, laying down and looking up at him with an intense expression.

Charlton bit his lip as Eliot worked his fingers under the waistband of Charlton’s pants. Gods, he was beautiful, his dark hair framing his face in waves. Eliot reached his hands around to tug the pants down, freeing Charlton’s hardening length. Charlton couldn’t breathe for a moment, feeling Eliot’s warm breath against his skin. Charlton was becoming more hard by the moment, the thought now in there, his body shifting focus from coffee to…

He felt suddenly vulnerable, uncertain. “Eliot, you-“

“Don’t you dare tell me some shit like I don’t have to.” Eliot’s hand drifted over a sensitive spot along Charlton’s hip before wrapping his fingers around Charlton’s cock. “The whole time you were giving me head yesterday, I thought about this.”

Charlton’s breath hitched. Oh. Eliot kept eye contact as he kissed along Charlton’s length before parting his lips to slide them over the tip of Charlton’s cock. Charlton moaned, watching as Eliot’s mouth moved, feeling his tongue brush over him.

“Oh gods,” he managed, eliciting a chuckle from Eliot that Charlton could feel all the way in his spine. He was so beautiful, with his lips around Charlton’s dick and moving like that. He wanted to watch, wanted to see, but it felt too intimate, too much. Too soon. Instead, he reached out and touched Eliot’s hair, a gentle encouragement without demand. Eliot worked him with his hand, with his mouth, his body writhing between Charlton’s legs.

Then Eliot lowered himself further, taking Charlton in all at once and Charlton hissed with the sudden sensation of it. Charlton closed his eyes and leaned back, trailing his fingers over Eliot’s shoulder. Eliot worked him with his mouth, with his hands, and Charlton cupped the side of Eliot’s face.

“Fuck. El, that’s so good.” The sound of his own voice surprised him.

Eliot responded by increasing the intensity, and Charlton gasped, feeling the tension building in him as he also relaxed. “I’m close,” he panted, trying to give Eliot the chance to stop if he needed to.

Instead, Eliot slid his hands under Charlton’s hips, and moaned around Charlton’s cock. Charlton squeezed his eyes even more shut as it washed over him and he let out all of his breath at once in a low moan as Eliot kept going. He could feel Eliot’s throat moving, swallowing, still sucking him for more, while his hand gripped the rest of his cock.

Charlton shook, his fingers tangling in Eliot’s hair, each pull of Eliot’s mouth eliciting another shudder in his body and another sound from his lips. He opened his eyes, and found Eliot looking at him. A hot flush started in his face; he couldn’t even imagine how he must have looked.

Eliot withdrew slowly, finishing with a flourish of the tongue that caused Charlton to let out one last small cry. Propping himself up on one elbow between Charlton’s legs, he grinned, his other hand caressing Charlton’s hip. His eyes looked darker, intent on him.

“I feel like I don’t have bones.” Charlton reached out and brushed Eliot’s hair out of his face.

“And I didn’t even use any magic.” Eliot moved his hand to rest on Charlton’s stomach, under his shirt.

“You look pleased with yourself. Which you should be.”

“Oh, I am.” Eliot’s fingers brushed over Charlton’s skin. “I’m very pleased. And now I’m ready for that coffee.”

“I’ll make coffee, and breakfast.” He ran his hand over Eliot’s cheek. “Then let’s see what progress we can make to finding Fillory.”

Eliot’s expression softened and he turned his head and kissed Charlton’s palm. “Oh, Margo is going to love when she finds out we got to Fillory fueled by coffee and blow jobs.” He laughed, sitting up and reaching out a hand to help Charlton up. “Among other things.”

There were, by far, much worse ways to find a magical land, Charlton supposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to heartstarmagick for giving this a read before I posted it!


	13. Consumed By Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlton draws pictures. Eliot almost relaxes.

Eliot came down the stairs, catching up with Charlton in the kitchen. After a week of dressing for teaching, he’d put on a lavender shirt, a dark purple vest, brown pants, and a paisley tie. It seemed like being overdressed for coming downstairs for breakfast, but it made him feel a bit more like himself. He didn’t have a lot of casual clothing, and a part of him always nagged at him, telling him that he needed to present himself well.

Besides, what if by some chance they did make a Fillory breakthrough? It wasn’t likely, but it wouldn’t do to show up to see Bambi again dressed like he’d just wandered in off the streets. He’d never hear the end of it.

He’d also taken an aspirin and drank two full glasses of water, to combat the fuzziness that remained in his head from the night previous. Not a wise decision, he supposed, but it was nothing compared to how he used to deal with his problems. Some of it he’d lost a taste for, something about all of the abuse his body went through. Some foods still tasted wrong, some alcohol made his stomach churn. At the insistence of the Brakebills onsite medical staff, he’d had a full round of blood tests after what had happened and found that he’d have to take it a lot easier on himself for a while. He hated it; he missed the parties, the fun, the not giving a shit.

Then Q happened, Fillory happened, and everything else had happened, and Eliot started giving a shit, which was a more complicated existence.

In the kitchen, Charlton hovered over the toaster, frowning.

“It doesn’t go any faster if you stare at it,” Eliot noted, leaning against the frame of the entry.

“This toaster sometimes burns what I put in it, I haven’t worked out the setting for toaster strudels.” He tapped the edge of one of the plates. “Or else Todd keeps changing it.”

Eliot chuckled at Charlton’s persistent frustration with Earth cooking. “Some day I’ll teach you to use the stove and the oven.”

“It’s one of the hardest parts, getting used to doing things on Earth that I used to know how to do just fine in Fillory.” He sighed, pushing buttons on the microwave to start another item he’d put in there. “I used to know how to cook, but none of this makes any sense.” He pointed to the microwave. “This is just weird.”

“Most of us cheat and look up things that tell us what to do. Don’t feel bad.” Despite Charlton’s general ineptitude in the kitchen, he looked at home moving around and juggling multiple things at once. He moved to the fridge to pull out the creamer, then set it on the counter to peer into the toaster again. He still looked like he was adjusting to having his own body, his hands shaking slightly as he moved things, his motions still stiff.

It was nice to have someone here, especially someone who he could talk to, who knew enough of his faults to not want to strangle him, and who Eliot liked seeing around. Maybe a bit more than liked, given that he found himself staring at Charlton’s ass. He’d managed to find a dark blue sweatshirt with a hood; it wouldn’t have been Eliot’s first choice, but it worked on Charlton. He’d seen him the same for so long that seeing him as himself in Earth clothes seemed strange, but also reassuring. There was something comfortable about Charlton being here, possibly too comfortable. He could get used to this, but he needed to _not_ get used to it. It was too soon to know where this was going.

“You don’t have to stay in here and watch,” Charlton said, reaching for the microwave as the beep sounded.

“Well, if you don’t _want_ me watching you…” Eliot chuckled. “I’ll go get the spells and research we’ve gotten so far together and put it out so we can start after breakfast.”

Charlton glanced over his shoulder as he opened the microwave. “If I mess up toaster strudels and egg bites, I don’t want there to be witnesses.”

“Fair enough. I wouldn’t want there to be witnesses, either.” He backed out of the kitchen and went over to the office to retrieve the case of spells and notes. He had found leads on a number of spells, which he’d gotten with the help of Julia, Penny, and Kady. Teaching all week left him little time to do the legwork himself, but he did research at every opportunity, and had the largest repository of notes and spells of the group. Many had gone nowhere, or perhaps were part of a larger whole, but every reference to Fillory, every spell for teleportation, every divination, was more information. Even if it wasn’t a solution yet, it had given him a better picture of what existed. But they had a long way to go.

He spread all of the notes out on the far side of the dining room table. Every week the resource grew, but every week it felt like they still weren’t making the progress he wanted. It had been months, and while the brief pizza breakthrough of the day before had been encouraging, it didn’t get them closer to connecting the two worlds. What it did tell him, though, was that the others were all alive. With that, they could work out the rest.

He stared down at the newest addition to the pile, the two-page bridge spell. The wording of the spell felt odd, and he wasn’t sure why that stuck out to him. Perhaps it had been translated from another language, which happened sometimes. It wasn’t easy to translate spells, given the complexities of a word meaning something completely different if not in the correct context, or accompanied with the correct hand motions. Julia had affixed a note to the second page of the spell, noting the linguistic oddities.

Charlton came into the dining room, bringing coffee. He set the cups down and then headed back to get the rest from the kitchen. Eliot moved to the other end of the table, not wanting to risk the spells with the coffee or food. He took a sip of the coffee, expecting to find the bite of whiskey and not finding it. He glanced up at Charlton as he came back with two plates. “Coffee is different today,” he remarked.

“I can add something if you want,” Charlton offered, setting the plates down. “It just seemed like…” He stopped, sitting down and wrapping his fingers around the mug of coffee absolutely _ruined_ by creamer. “Maybe not the best thing in the morning.”

That was about as diplomatic as it could be, Eliot supposed. “You knew I was drinking last night.” He hoped that Charlton didn’t think this was about him, it wasn’t about him. It was about… everything.

Charlton nodded. “I have a sensitive nose. I thought maybe I should stop assuming that I should add it every time. If you’d like it, ask, I’m not here to judge you.”

Eliot digested that statement, wondering why Charlton wasn’t more harsh. He certainly had opinions about everything else. “You judge everything, Charlton. Maybe you _should_ judge me. It’s not like I don’t have it coming sometimes.”

“Maybe.” Charlton sipped at his coffee. “But I’m more patient with you than you are.” Charlton gestured with a hand. “All that I’m saying is that either way, if I’m making coffee, I have to make an assumption. I’ve been making one, but now I’m making a different one.”

“It’s fine, Charlton. You don’t have to justify it.” Eliot sipped at the coffee again, and it felt oddly fine to just start the day without the rest. It would help clear his head. And Charlton wasn’t wrong; if Eliot was being honest, it wasn’t healthy to drink as much as he’d been prone to. It was as kind of a callout as could be managed, and there was something almost reassuring about Charlton taking a stance on it. “Besides, you _do_ make good coffee. I think I’ll survive.”

“I certainly hope you’ll survive,” Charlton remarked, pushing Eliot’s plate towards him. On the plate was a toaster strudel and two egg bites. Eliot had made the egg bites earlier in the week for a fast breakfast before heading to work. The strudel was no doubt strawberry, since this was Charlton, and he’d managed to somehow fill a portion of the freezer with the damned things. At least it wasn’t Pop Tarts. Eliot had to draw a line somewhere.

He looked down at the toaster strudel in front of him, the frosting a melted mess that looked vaguely like a mushroom. Or something far more inappropriate, if he looked at it from another angle. “Did you try to draw something on here?”

“It was a smiley face,” Charlton admitted. “But the frosting melted and now it’s…” He looked down at it. “I can’t tell you what it is anymore.”

“That’s actually sort of sweet. Weird, but… good weird.” Eliot looked over at Charlton as he sat down. “Thank you.”

Charlton smiled and started eating, and Eliot did the same. At the least, it meant they wouldn’t start out a day of studying spells hungry. Ten minutes later they had finished eating and moved to the other side of the table, eying the spells. Charlton didn’t sit, instead standing behind Eliot and digging his thumbs into Eliot’s shoulders and neck and Eliot leaned back as Charlton found a particularly stiff spot and pressed his thumb into it. He could feel the tight muscle releasing and he sighed, not realizing how tense he’d felt until Charlton had pressed on it.

“Are you trying to distract me from the spells?” Not that he minded a little distraction.

“I’m trying to get you to relax.” Charlton peered over Eliot’s shoulder. “Is this the new spell you were talking about?”

Eliot nodded, tapping it. “This is it. Julia says it could be used to get us there, but it won’t help us find Fillory.”

Charlton let go of Eliot’s shoulders and pulled the spell towards him as he sat down. He reviewed Julia’s note. “Linguistic oddities,” he repeated. He shifted towards the first page and traced the bridge at the top of the spell with his finger, then stopped, staring. His tongue pressed at the corner of his mouth as he reviewed the page.

“Is something wrong?” Eliot asked.

Charlton didn’t look up. “Paper. I need a piece of paper and a pen.” He looked over at Eliot. “I want to show you something.”

Eliot reached into the case he’d pulled the notes out of and pulled out a notepad and a pen, pushing them to Charlton. Charlton pushed the spell aside and started sketching something on the paper. “It's been a long time,” he admitted. “Since I’ve seen this.” Charlton’s hand moved quickly over the paper, the lines quick but sure, as he drew a picture. It started to take form as the same bridge.

“I tried not to look at the spell for too long,” he continued. “I’m trying to only do this from memory, such as it is.”

“You’ve seen this bridge?” Eliot asked, seeing the scrollwork from the bridge take form. Tiny details, like a lizard entwined through part of it. In another, a fish. A ram’s head. Leaves. The amount of detail that Charlton added was astounding, and Eliot picked up the original spell, holding it in his hands to compare. The basic structure of the bridge lined up, and the major scrollwork within in. The posts along it and the shape of their lights. But Charlton’s drawing contained so much more detail, more detail than Eliot could have ever inferred from looking at just the drawing.

Charlton kept drawing in silence, the pen scratching over the surface of the paper as Eliot watched, fascinated. This was the same bridge, but something more. There’s no way Charlton could have been making this up. He had to have seen the bridge. Charlton’s eyes were narrowed in concentration, his tongue now pressing against the inside of his mouth, resulting in an awkward yet somehow almost endearing expression. When did Charlton’s expressions start becoming _that?_

Finally Charlton set the pen down, pointing at the drawing. “Yes, I’ve seen it.” He looked over at Eliot. “I watched the panels as they were carved, when I was a child. Later, I’d cross this bridge almost every day. I don’t know why someone used this specific bridge on this spell, but I’d know this bridge anywhere. It’s my father’s greatest work. Was.”

Eliot drew a breath, hearing the note of sadness in Charlton’s voice. That hadn’t been what he’d expected, at all. “Your father built this bridge?” Eliot set the spell and the drawing side by side to compare, impressed at Charlton’s ability to capture the image on paper. “Your artistic skills with a pen are far better than with frosting.”

“Ink doesn’t melt.” Charlton pushed at the pen on the table. “It looks like this spell is translated from ancient Fillorian.”

Eliot snapped his fingers, the pieces falling into place. “That’s why the structure feels wrong.” Eliot tapped the spell at one of the spots that seemed strange. “This is one of the points that feels strange.”

Charlton picked up the pen again and started copying down the spell onto the paper, circling the spot that Eliot had pointed to, and moving on to some of the other words. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to say, but these here don’t make sense.”

Eliot didn’t want to interrupt his flow, but he’d never seen anyone copy a spell that quickly and accurately without extensive training. Where was someone this good at this when he and Margo were studying? “How do you know how to do that?”

“I just do.” Charlton winced. “I’ve also had some practice.”

Something in his tone made Eliot wonder what that meant. “Meaning?”

“Kady has been paying me to help transcribe spells into digital format,” Charlton admitted.

“I don’t know if I should kill her or buy her a drink,” Eliot muttered. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, filing this under things he never wanted to explain to Henry. “You know you can’t blow your hedge fund on toaster pastries when you’re officially a student.”

“I know. I had to make some money somehow, and it’s something I’m apparently good at. I don’t mind,” Charlton added quickly. “It’s nice to be useful.”

Something in his tone made Eliot think that perhaps he hadn’t been a good enough friend, and hadn’t taken the time to understand Charlton’s potentially complicated relationship with magic. He’d worked out traveling, but as far as Eliot was aware, Charlton hadn’t managed to cast a spell beyond fixing his own wards. He put a hand on Charlton’s. “You’re always useful.”

“Well, today maybe I’m extra useful.” He looked down at the paper. “There’s something missing from this spell, though. Translation issues.”

“Julia and Penny did say it works,” Eliot pointed out. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the same as the original spell. It could be a modification.”

“That seems correct.” Charlton stared at the bridge. “My father rebuilt this bridge, but it’s a design that’s been in my family for many generations. This spell could be as old as me, or it could be much, much older.”

“But if it’s Fillorian, perhaps it would get us farther than Julia thought.” Eliot turned the facts all around in his head. For all they knew, the original copy of this spell was lost with Fillory. Or perhaps it still existed somewhere here on Earth. If there was anywhere they could start, it would be Brakebills. He wanted to look at the Library, but it had become increasingly hard to get in, since the destruction, and losing Zelda. He sighed. “It’s good that you like books because we’re headed to the school library.”

He didn’t want to ask to visit the Library unless he had no other choice, given that he’d have to negotiate with Henry to do so, which would likely mean explaining more about Charlton than Eliot wanted to explain. The last thing Eliot needed was a strange conversation with Henry. Although at the rate this was going, that would be unavoidable.


	14. Hearing Secret Harmonies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreadful research. Charlton is overly attached to pens. Eliot lies about pizza.

Everything Charlton saw on the way to the school library felt new, different. He’d never crossed the Brakebills grounds as himself before, and it felt strange to do so, to show his own face. He wondered if anyone would ask who he was, who’d seen him before. Few people knew him from his Hyman-form time, but there were a few. Dean Fogg, Wendy at the cafe, Todd, Professor Lipson who had given him an initial checkup after he’d been moved to Hyman’s body.

That in particular had been a strange conversation, with Lipson having all of the old medical records from storage from Hyman Cooper’s time at Brakebills. Charlton thought she’d taken it well; she’d said that she’d seen plenty of strange things. He’d asked if she’d specifically seen this and she’d said no, continuing to view him through a series of odd looking colored pieces of glass in frames. He’d come away with a clean bill of health and a recommendation to avoid anything on Hyman’s old allergy list until he could be retested (he looked up what an allergy test was as soon as he left, and hadn’t come away with much more clarity). That had included mushrooms, peanuts, dairy, most flowers, and certain breeds of cat and dogs. The list had made him sad, but he’d already proven that he could eat cheese and peanuts, and smell flowers. He hoped that the transfiguration amulet had taken care of the rest, too.

They reached the library and Charlton looked around as they entered the huge space, his eyes widening as he followed the massive stacks of books with his eyes. “I haven’t seen this many books anywhere,” he declared, and Eliot put a hand over his mouth.

“It’s a library, Charlton, you’re supposed to talk quietly,” Eliot hissed.

Now that Charlton looked, he could see the people glaring at him. He winced and waved to them in apology. Eliot pulled his hand away, and Charlton glanced at him. “Sorry,” he whispered.

“Everyone has done it at some point.” Eliot shuffled the folder of spells under his arm. “Come on, let’s go see if we can find this.”

He led them to a section in the back, marked as “spell reference.” Charlton peered at the assortment of books, and ran his fingers along the spine of one, feeling the embossed indentations under his fingertips. They called to him, like quiet, secret songs that only he could hear. He wanted to stay up late just seeing what they contained. “Are these all spells?” No wonder the hedges held some resentment for Brakebills, when spells were so easy to just pick up and look at.

Eliot shook his head. “These are more like books with references to spells and magic. Like everything that’s worth time or energy on earth, they lock up the good stuff.”

Charlton reached up and pulled out a book, flipping it open. “This one has a lot about…” He slipped through a few pages, skimming them. A number of references to different types of catalysts for fire spells. “Fire magic it looks like?”

Eliot peered over his shoulder. “Yep, that’s it.” He chuckled. “Well at least we didn’t stumble into the sex magic section.”

“There’s a section for that?” Charlton thought about it a moment. He didn’t know if he wanted to know what was in that section, or if he wanted nothing to do with it. He’d just started figuring out sex again, he certainly didn’t want to bring magic into it.

“There’s a section for drugs, sex, alcohol, magical creatures, transfiguration,” Eliot continued, pulling a paper out of the case to review.

Charlton closed the book and put it back where he’d found it. Maybe he didn’t want to know how strange some of the books in here were, but on the other hand, he did want to know. He wanted to read them, he wanted to understand what magic meant here, to see if it was different from Fillory. “All of these are here for students to come look at any time?”

“Generally, yes. It’s a massive resource. It’s likely we won’t find what we’re looking for here, but it may help us get us closer.”

Frowning, Charlton traced the stacks up books upwards, to where he wouldn’t be able to reach them without a ladder or without magic. “If you don’t think we’ll find what we need here, why not go directly to the Library?”

He watched Eliot flinch. “It’s been on a bit of a lockdown while they clean things up. Some access has been granted, but there’s a waitlist. I’ve been on it, but there’s still a month before my appointment.”

“A _month_?” Charlton’s jaw dropped. “What’s the point of having such a resource if you can’t access it when you need it?”

“Oh, a month is if you’re on the shortlist.” Eliot put the paper down on an empty part of a shelf. “It’s longer for students. If I had a work related reason to go down there, I’d be able to push it along faster, but… I don’t.”

“You could just make one up,” Charlton offered. “Not that I’m suggesting you lie, but…”

“That’s exactly what you just suggested, actually.” Eliot’s finger traced over the items in the list. “Not that I disapprove, but it’s become harder to pull one over on Henry.”

Charlton watched Eliot’s long fingers as they moved over the surface of the paper, his rings reflecting the light in the room. He found it interesting that Eliot called Dean Fogg by his first name, when very few others did. “Maybe Dean Fogg always knew, but used to let you get away with more.”

Eliot paused, then shook his head, a small smile on his face. “That’s likely exactly what happened,” he admitted. “Sounds like Henry. But I’m a professor now, so no bullshit.” Eliot sighed dramatically. “They put a triple lockdown on fun around here sometimes.”

“Well… not all fun.” Charlton moved in next to Eliot, tucking himself up against him to look at the paper. “Where do we start?”

Eliot put an arm around Charlton and pulled him in closer to review the list. His hand rested above Charlton’s hip, holding them against each other. Charlton took a deep breath, feeling Eliot’s warmth even through the sweatshirt he wore. This was far superior to solving problems from within Eliot’s head, but also an adjustment. Eliot’s gestures were so casually affectionate sometimes, and while Charlton knew that he was like that with many people (Margo in particular), Charlton couldn’t help but take some comfort in it. After so long of being nowhere, being no one, and not having something as simple as standing this close to a friend, he reveled in every moment he had where he could be alive and present in the world with another person. But there was something even more special about it being Eliot. He’d watched Eliot go through so much, and he’d come to care about Eliot. If he was being honest with himself, he’d admit that this was more than caring about Eliot, but he was afraid to put a label on it. Sometimes putting a label on something could chase it away.

“I miss Alice’s smug way of knowing where to start, we could use that.” Eliot sighed. “But since we’re on our own, let’s start with the obvious choice of portals. Then we’ll move on to teleportation.”

“Like traveling?” Charlton asked, hopeful that he’d have the opportunity to learn more about his newfound ability.

“Exactly that.” Eliot pulled him closer then let go, picking up the paper and tucking it away. “Let’s go find some magic.”

Three hours later and they were no closer to finding what they were looking for. At first, Charlton had been fascinated by all of it. The books, the information, all of the knowledge. Watching Eliot skillfully weave his hands in the air to retrieve a single book many shelves above their heads and setting it into Charlton’s waiting hands that dipped with the weight of the larger tomes. They established a rhythm of Eliot pulling down books and Charlton taking them to a table, then after they got a number of them they’d split the books and review them.

Even though Charlton had not done this kind of research before, he took notes on anything he found that looked potentially interesting. During the first couple of books he’d looked through, Eliot had watched over his shoulder, seeming to ensure that he was looking at the right things. After that, he’d let Charlton just work on whatever book he had, which Charlton took as a compliment. He figured he must be doing something right.

The information laid out in front of him had been fascinating, a wealth of knowledge he hadn’t thought about before. He’d always been in touch with a certain amount of magic, but it had been limited to what he’d learned. Magic had always been in the background throughout his life, a persistent part of life in Fillory. In Fillory, though, magic threaded through everything, everyone. It wasn’t as controlled as it was on Earth. He missed that, the freedom of it, the way the world and the people were in touch with it. He’d taken it for granted, and this only underscored that.

Eliot shut the book he was reading and looked up at Charlton. “Has any of this dreadful research yielded any results for you?”

“No, but it’s all so fascinating. That there’s so much thought put into magic. In Fillory, it’s just there, all the time. It’s not so…” He frowned, pushing the book aside. “Controlled, I guess.”

“No wonder you’re hanging out with hedges.” Eliot a finger along the spine of the book. “I miss Fillory, too. I miss that I was a good king.”

“You were a spectacular king,” Charlton affirmed.

Eliot smiled wistfully. “You’re only getting the version from my memories.”

“A lot of the the version from your memories is full of doubt, of being insecure.” Charlton regarded Eliot, watching his expression to see if he went too far. Eliot looked back, his face open. Listening. “But what you don’t always see is that people didn’t just look at you because you were king, it was because you found solutions.”

“I was good enough at it that I caused a reduction of drama, which is apparently a sin.” Eliot rolled his eyes, then closed them. “I wish I was there. To see what it’s become, with the chance to become more. I’ve said that becoming myself was the greatest creative project I’d ever accomplished.” He sighed. “I wanted the chance to apply that to Fillory, to take the parts of it that it didn’t need and give it space to grow into the rest.”

“You want Fillory to have the chance that you didn’t initially have.”

Eliot opened his eyes and looked at Charlton. “You certainly don’t mince words, do you?”

“Not usually, no.” Charlton tucked a stray bit of hair behind his ear. “It’s a reasonable thing to want. Fillory wasn’t perfect, but I think you understand the good and the bad. I wish I’d been there for the reign of High King Eliot.”

A wistful look crossed Eliot’s face. “I wish you could have seen it, too. Fillory saved me, in it’s way. Frustrating, pissed me off, broke my heart. But taught me patience, how to appreciate parts of myself I’d buried deep.” A smile touched his face. “It gave me a piece of my soul back. Not to sound dramatic, but I’m dramatic.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in the old wooden chair. “I wish you could have walked through Fillory again, as yourself. Do you miss it?”

“Of course I miss it,” Charlton scoffed, toying with his pen in his hands. “But…” He took a breath and looked at Eliot, cocking his head to the side. “I wouldn’t have ever seen it again if not for you. If not for you letting me out, to have that time I could have with it.” He balanced the pen on one finger, not taking his eyes off of Eliot. It had been the last he’d had of the place he’d come from, the place he was born. The place where he’d lived with his family, his friends, lovers, so many more. He wished he could have visited the valley that his family had lived, one last time. He’d had more than he’d ever expected, though, and for that he was grateful. “That meant a lot to me.”

“It was hardly anything, Charlton, having to walk around dealing with my bullshit. Maybe walking around at all after a thousand years of…” Eliot trailed off, a look crossing his face. “Well. I suppose a glance at life in the place that you should have been all along is better than nothing.”

“It is,” Charlton shifted in his chair, the pen moving but not tipping. “And before you say it, I don’t regret any of it.” He glanced around, making sure that no one could listen. “It’s not that I’m glad everything happened. Some of those years trapped were awful, and I went through denial, fear, rage, other things that I didn’t even know how to put a name on.” He moved his finger and watched the pen teeter and fall, clattering quietly onto the table. “But if it hadn’t happened, I never would have met you, or any of the others. I wouldn’t have had the chance to try to help you find Fillory again now.”

Eliot reached out and put a finger on the amulet on Charlton’s wrist. “Somehow, someone knew I’d need the help. But I think you would have been happy living out your life normally, Charlton.”

“Maybe.” Charlton didn’t know that for sure. He wouldn’t have minded skipping the years with the Nameless, but in turn he would have missed so much more. “And that’s not what happened, so it’s not really worth putting a lot of thought into. We get to choose what we do now.”

“And of all the things, you chose to hang out with me in a library.” Eliot smiled.

“And you choose to let me,” Charlton added. He pushed his pen to the side and looked over his page of notes. Tight, neat handwriting, but he could see places where it felt strained, out of practice. He’d written things down while in his own happy place, but the ink of his memories didn’t flow like the ink of Earth. In fact, he found it fascinating that a non-magical pen could just write for so long before running out of ink. “Do you think we’ll have to go to the Library?”

“At this rate, yes. But that’s a conversation that can wait until after lunch.”

Charlton closed the book he’d been looking through and pushed it aside. He’d forgotten that breakfast had been hours ago now, in all of the reading and taking notes. “I’m always up for lunch.”

“I noticed. Not a criticism, just an observation.” Eliot pondered for a moment. “We should actually get you checked out by Lipson again, now that I’m thinking about it.”

A rock dropped in Charlton’s stomach and he lost his appetite. “That means telling someone else about the transformation.”

“Well, they’re going to have to know eventually,” Eliot pointed out. “Unless you plan on going full Hyman in front of everyone, all the time.”

“Oh, no, not that. Not that I minded, it’s just much better being me.” Charlton looked down at his hands, tracing the tattoos with his eyes. A strange thing, to know he was capable of taking anyone anywhere. In theory, at least. He’d read that travelers aren’t completely human, and he wondered if that meant that he wasn’t completely human now, too.

What to make of that? He was in a body from Earth, a mind from Fillory, and still managed to be part magical creature. It hardly seemed possible yet here he was. And that’s what scared him about revealing himself to anyone else; he wasn’t sure if anyone had been in his situation before. He was sure he’d be a fascinating study case, but there were so many questions he didn’t want to answer, topics he didn’t want to talk about.

“Well, I’m always an advocate for being the you that you choose to be,” Eliot declared, standing and collecting a stack of books. Charlton followed his lead and they dropped them off at a book drop.

They started towards the exit, when something dropped on the ground in front of them. A box, low and square, with writing on it.

Eliot stopped dead in his tracks, putting a hand on Charlton’s arm. “That has message pizza all over it.”

Charlton looked down at the box, which clearly said, ‘Josh’s message pizza delivery.’ “Literally,” he noted.

As Eliot stepped forward to claim the pizza, a librarian came out of a hallway and stormed up to them. “There is no food allowed in the library.”

“We didn’t-“ Charlton started, but Eliot put a hand on his arm.

“It looks like someone left this here,” Eliot said, flashing her a huge smile. “We’ll just take this out and throw it away for you.”

Her whole posture shifted, and she smiled back. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

Eliot bent down to retrieve the pizza, and Charlton turned away, realizing that he was staring directly at Eliot’s ass. Not that he thought Eliot minded, but it felt lewd in a place like this. There would be time for that later. He’d started to notice little things about Eliot’s physicality that he hadn’t noticed when he’d been in his head. Every interaction he’d had with Eliot had been based on what they talked about, and even though he acknowledged and saw Eliot physically, it hadn’t really been something he’d noticed constantly until he’d had a body again. A body that noticed a lot more than he wished it would, some days.

They hurried out of the library, a few people glaring at them as they went. Eliot flashed them all a cheerful smile and a fake excuse.

Outside, Eliot leaned against a wall and held up the pizza, grinning. “Well, we have lunch.”

“Do you think he knows when we’re hungry, or if he just has exceptional timing?” Charlton thought back to the macarons Josh had made.

“Josh’s food timing has always been excellent.” Eliot started to open the box, then paused. “Let’s find somewhere to sit down, just in case.”

Charlton nodded, but the curiosity was killing him. It had only been a day since the last pizza, how much time had passed in Fillory versus Earth? Was everything fine? Had anything gone wrong?

Either way, they were about to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been having a little bit of a tough time lately so I’ve been spending more effort on doing some coloring and some good deeds. It’s helped me immensely so I’m feeling really good about the next chapter, where things go a bit sideways. :D


	15. Walking On A Wire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They ate a pizza.

The pizza’s warmth sunk into Eliot’s hands. They’d walked back towards the Physical Kids’ Cottage, mostly because he didn’t know how he’d react to whatever message this could contain. The box was a good upgrade, and would mean they’d actually get to eat the pizza instead of completely wasting it. His hands shook, a nervousness to know what message it could contain. Assuming it contained a message at all, but it seemed like a lot of work to not include some kind of note. It wouldn’t be Margo or Alice’s style. Fen, well, he would have expected perhaps a stab in the box.

He looked down at the picture on the box, imprinted in red and green. It seemed they’d made quite a few changes in new Fillory, and Eliot hoped he’d still recognize it. But with Fen involved, he was sure that it would have kept the best of the old Fillory.

Eliot and Charlton sat across from each other at a small white metal table, the surface a series of flowers and vines. It was just large enough for two people, and Eliot set the pizza down in the middle. He ran his hand along the top of the box. “I feel like a student all over again, being excited about a free pizza.”

“Except when you were a student it was usually cheap pizza,” Charlton pointed out. “Like that time-“

“You don’t forget nearly as much as you think you do.” Eliot regarded him across the pizza, wondering how often this would happen. He didn’t mind it so much now, but over time, he’d no doubt start to fret about the things Charlton might know about him that he wished he didn’t. “Do you remember the time I got free good pizza?”

Charlton shook his head. “No.”

Eliot smiled. “Then I’ve still got some surprises for you yet. My bar for pizza is higher than it used to be.” He looked back down at the pizza, took a deep breath, and flipped open the box.

Inside the lid, there was a message inked in Margo’s handwriting. No doubt because she could write small, but even so, the letters squished up along the edges, or ran downward to finish a word.

_Eliot – miss you so fucking much. It’s good here, but it’s not the same without you. Message bunnies can’t find Earth; not sure how pizzas are, Alice has some theories. Looking for ways to find Earth, but all books were lost when I rolled time back (fuck). I know you’re looking too. Building this place from scratch is a clusterfuck, it’s like herding horny greased rabbits that bite. Less drama in this Fillory, I’d be disappointed if I had the energy. Say hi to everyone. I’m sure you’ve found some kind of trouble to keep you out of trouble. Going to throw one big fucking party when you’re here. -M_

The end of the message went so low inside the lid that the others’ signatures crammed into whatever available space there was. Alice’s perfect handwriting, Fen’s scrawl (and the exclamation point she’d started putting after it), Josh’s clean but almost unreadable name, Rafe’s signature with a flourish that seemed distinctively Fillorian.

Eliot stared at the box, feeling a little lighter. Nothing too heavy, nothing that made him feel down, just a normal letter. It felt oddly reassuring under the circumstances. He turned the box around for Charlton to read. He watched Charlton’s eyebrows narrow and his head tilt when he got to the text on the edges, his eyes scanning the inside of the box. His mouth went from slightly parted, to his lips pushed together, to his tongue pressing at the edge of his lip. Expressions and habits that were so specifically Charlton, and Eliot found that reassuring. He’d never gotten used to seeing those expressions on Hyman’s face; they never fit right. The movements were Charlton’s, but they didn’t make sense. On Charlton, they fit. It’s as if Charlton hadn’t gotten used to other people being able to see him thinking. That, or he’d grown up with a family that didn’t have so much of an expectation about how much emotion his face should show. Eliot’s father no doubt would have told him to stop it, that his face would get stuck in some strange expression.

After a moment Charlton looked up at Eliot, eyes wide. “This looks like it’s all good news, so far.”

“It’s a start,” Eliot affirmed. “I’d hoped for some kind of hint or progress on their end, but there’s no way they’ve got any of the resources. If they’re lucky, they’ll find some kind of expert there, but it’s possible that the knowledge is mostly lost.” He sighed, turning the box so that he could pick up a slice of pizza. “We do have lunch, and not one that landed on the floor.”

He balanced the pizza on his fingertips, looking it over. Another sausage pizza, but up close, he could now see the details. The pieces of fresh basil, the seasonings in the sausage, the roasted garlic cloves, the mushrooms. Sprinkled with parmesan. He hoped the pizza would taste as good as it smelled. He’d never developed a real taste for cheese in Fillory, it always tasted just a little different. Josh had altered a lot of recipes to make it work, but pizza hadn’t had a lot of successes in the old Fillory.

He bit his teeth into it and moaned. He needed to make it to new Fillory just to eat the cheese, now. The pizza tasted distinctively like one of Josh’s, but with a different flavor. Fen had once said that she liked cheese on Earth better than cheese in Fillory, could this have been some of her doing? “It’s a crime that there’s only one pizza.”

Charlton reached for a slice of pizza and lifted it, holding it in front of him while he sniffed at it. He took a bite of the pizza and closed his eyes, chewing in measured bites. “Oh, this is _good_ ,” he affirmed.

They ate the pizza in relative silence, either the effect of being too hungry, or processing the information they’d just received. Possibly both. The most likely outcome at this point would be that Team Earth would have to find Fillory, rather than the other way around. Their priority would be just getting infrastructure working, and as much as Eliot had hoped for a breakthrough on their side, he understood. The unspoken reality was that they may never find a way to bridge the gap between Earth and Fillory, and in that case, it would be best if Fillory had a solid infrastructure in place so that they could live there indefinitely if needed.

Even if it was the rest of their lives.

Eliot frowned at the thought. He’d lived a lifetime in Fillory, once. A lifetime that he barely remembered, and he wondered what had happened here on Earth. It had all been undone, but had they known? Had they wondered when they’d come back?

The thought of them spending the rest of their lives in Fillory made him feel like a rock dropped in the bottom of his stomach. It wouldn’t happen, he wouldn’t let it. Somewhere, there had been a way to join these two worlds. Maybe it had taken gods, maybe it had taken more magic than he could imagine, but it had been done. Some connection existed between the worlds, as Earth still had magic from the Wellspring. “Earth is already connected to Fillory in some way, otherwise we wouldn’t have magic at all,” he mussed out loud. “I wonder if there’s a way to follow the magic back to the source?”

“How does magic even find it’s way to Earth?” Charlton set his last slice of pizza down in the box, looking at his fingers. “We should have got some napkins.”

“Clean freak.” Eliot reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief. “It’s clean,” he noted, dropping it in front of Charlton.

“I’m not above licking my fingers,” Charlton protested. “But my tongue never does that good of a job.”

Sometimes, Eliot didn’t know if Charlton just didn’t listen to himself, or if he did it on purpose. Either way, it made him laugh. “Now that you’ve offered that distraction…” Eliot took another bite of the pizza, noticing a particularly large mushroom that gave him pause. He chewed and swallowed the bite. “You aren’t allergic to mushrooms anymore, I hope?”

Charlton blinked and looked down at the slice of pizza in his hand. “I hope I’m not, because these are too good to stop eating.”

“That’s easy to say now, it’s all fun and games until the allergic reaction.” Eliot finished off the piece of pizza and nibbled at the crust. “I wonder where else magic goes.”

“Could it go everywhere? Are there other places that use magic? Planets?”

“Now you’ve got me thinking about aliens that can use magic.”

“It’s possible. To Fillory, you might technically be an alien that can use magic.”

“Oh that’s just weird.” Eliot picked at the crust, thinking. A nostalgia for when they were all together filled him, and on its heels came the sadness. He watched Charlton finish his last piece of pizza, finally licking the grease off his fingers, then wiping them off on the handkerchief. “You’re very meticulous about some things. Were you always that way?”

“A little.” Charlton folded the napkin carefully, pressing on the creases as he went. “For the most part, my childhood was chaos, with my mother having to leave at odd hours. I took comfort in what routines that I could.” He paused, smoothing his hands over the material laying on the table. “But since I’ve had physical form again, sometimes it’s just me asserting that I’m in control now.” He looked up at Eliot. “It’s nice. I feel a lot more comfortable the last couple of days.”

“I’m really glad to hear that.” A small part of Eliot envied Charlton for how he had been able to roll with all the chaos. At the same time, it made him think about how far he’d come, from where he’d been when he came to Brakebills, through everything that’s happened since he’s been here, all the way until now. If anyone had told him that he’d be a professor, at a magic school, he probably would have laughed at them and then taken another hit of whatever drug of the month he was into.

It was the most comfortable he’d been in his own skin, and that actually unnerved him.

“I can see you thinking,” Charlton noted.

“I’m always thinking unless I’m too fucked up to think.” Eliot sighed.

“Anything you want to talk about? What is it that Julia says? Penny for your thoughts?”

Eliot laughed. “I have never thought about how that context is so different coming from Julia.”

Charlton laid his hands down flat on the napkin. “ _Penny_ for your thoughts. He’s psychic.” He laughed. “Do you think Julia knows how funny that is?”

“I have no idea, but if not, we can start snickering next time she says it, and she’ll either get the joke, or wonder what we’re on.”

“I’ll probably just be on the couch,” Charlton admitted.

Now that made Eliot full on laugh loudly as he ran his fingers along the edge of the pizza box. Not normal cardboard like a box from here, but a smoother material. He wondered what it is. “I need to get you out more. ‘What we’re on’ is a reference to being on some kind of drug.”

“Oh.” Charlton shook his head. “I’d probably still be on the couch, along with that. Unless we’re in Fillory, then just breathing works for that. But it stops being as effective after a point, when you’re constantly exposed to it.”

“I noticed.” Eliot crossed his arms and leaned back. “But that was a great first couple of months.”

There were so many things he wanted to know about the new Fillory. He started to think about the Neitherlands, and the fountains to other worlds. Those other worlds also got their magic from Fillory. Penny had jumped there to check the fountain, to find that the old Fillory fountain had cracked and collapsed in on itself. There was no hope that it would go, and no new fountains had appeared. Had all of those worlds connected there through some intentional means, or was it something that would happen over time? If so, how long? They certainly didn’t have the time to wait years or more for it to just happen. No one had that kind of time.

Eliot read Margo’s note one more time, running his fingers over the black lettering. He missed his Bambi so much that it ached in his heart, but he knew she was out there. He knew they’d find each other.

He looked up at Charlton to see that the other looked pale, his head resting in his hands. His fingers curled, clawing into his hair. He’d never seen Charlton do this, and he got up, already moving around the table. “Are you okay?” Was it the mushrooms? Or something worse?

He didn’t know the longer term effects of Charlton being in Hyman’s body, or how the transfiguration amulet fit into it all. Something could be wrong. “Tell me what’s happening.” He put a hand on the back of Charlton’s neck, and his skin felt too warm.

Charlton flinched, trying to get to his feet. “I think… maybe headache,” he slurred. “Hurts.” As he pushed the chair back he started to topple, and Eliot stepped into catch him, wrapping his arms around his chest from behind and lowering him to the grass. Charlton curled up into a ball on his side, his eyes pressed closed and his body shaking.

This didn’t look good. He felt Charlton’s forehead and it too hot, dry. He moved to check his pulse at the neck, the pace of it too slow, slightly weak. His breathing shouldn’t be this fast. Something was very wrong, and it filled him with a chill. This looked like a potential shock reaction, but something about it felt off. “I’m calling Lipson,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Charlton opened his mouth to speak, but it came out as a shout, full of pain. His hands balled up into fists. Eliot put a hand on Charlton’s head, trying to calm him. Then the tension drained from Charlton’s body and he uncurled, a limp sprawl in the grass. 

“Charlton?” Eliot asked, placing a hand on Charlton’s shoulder, shaking him gently. There was no reply. His breathing didn’t slow at all, resulting rapid, short breaths.

Eliot dropped the phone back in his pocket and started repositioning Charlton, assuming a shock reaction. He pulled the chair over and laid it on the ground, lifting Charlton’s legs and sliding them onto part of the chair to elevate them. Normally he’d cast a warmth spell over him to keep him warm, but the heat of his skin made him concerned.

He pulled out his phone and called Lipson, then sat in the grass to wait, watching Charton’s rapid breathing. He could feel his own pulse banging in his eardrums, too loud. Now that he had nothing to do, the reality of it set in. He didn’t know what could have caused this rapid of a reaction. How much pain was Charlton in? What had happened to make him collapse?

“You probably can’t hear me,” he said, putting a hand on Charlton’s. “But I’m here.” He’d done everting he could think of.

A few minutes later Lipson arrived in a cart used to transport patients if needed, with another member of her staff. Hopping out of the cart, she reached back to pull out a large brown leather bag, and stopped when she saw Charlton laying on the ground. “Eliot, who is this? You said Charlton on the phone.”

“It’s a long story. It’s him. It’s how he actually looks.” Eliot drew a deep breath and lifted Charlton’s arm. His pulse thudded against his thumb, erratic and still too weak. He pointed to the amulet. “It’s a transfiguration amulet.”

Lipson dropped to the ground on the other side of Eliot, setting down her bag. “Tell me everything.”

“It’s a long story, but the amulet makes him appear as he actually is.” He looked down at Charlton, setting his hand back down to rest at his side. “This his how he looked before.”

“When he was still in your head?”

“I appreciate that you can ask that question without making me sound crazy,” Eliot admitted. “And yes. We also ate a pizza with mushrooms, but he’s smelled flowers he was allergic to before, and eaten cheese and peanuts, and had no reaction.”

Lipson pulled out her scrying glasses from her bag, holding one up. “It’s not an allergic reaction, but something is wrong.” She set the glasses down for a moment, feeling along Charlton’s neck. “Did he fall or hit his head?”

“No. I caught him before he fell.” Eliot resisted the urge to get on his feet and start pacing.

She looked up at her assistant and nodded, picking up the glasses again and looking though another one. “We should get him inside or to the infirmary.”

Eliot shook his head, putting a hand on Charlton’s side. A concern swelled up inside of him, a sense of dread as the thought of moving him started to worry Eliot. “No, you can’t move him. He’s in a traveler’s body. He traveled yesterday, you need to check if he’s astral projecting.”

“Is there anything else you want to casually throw out there?” Lipson asked, flipping to another one of the glasses. She didn’t wait for Eliot to answer. “He’s not astral projecting, he’s in there.” She flipped to another one. “He’s the only one in there.” Flip. “There’s no spells on him.” Flip. “He’s got more solid wards than before,” she noted.

“That’s why he couldn’t travel, his body had Hyman’s wards,” Eliot explained. “Penny taught him how to build his own ward.”

“You’re full of surprises. Penny shouldn’t be teaching outside of class, though. That could be dangerous.”

“Dangerous would have been letting him figure it out on his own,” Eliot snapped. They hadn’t had any other choice, and he resented the judgement.

“It’s not a judgment.” Flip. A pause as she pulled the glass closer to her face and then away again. “Here’s something interesting.” She handed the glass to Eliot to see.

His annoyance faded as he stared through the glass. From Charlton flowed a glowing golden cord, that spun out into the sky and disappeared. It shifted and moved as he watched, and he could see many strands forming it. He’d never seen anything like it. “What is that?” he asked, handing the glass back to Lipson.

“It reminds me of the tether that Julia had to Hope, but it’s far larger.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked through the glass again. “What happened before he collapsed?”

“He said it was a headache.” Eliot reached down and brushed Charlton’s hair out of his face, trusting Lipson to tell him if he shouldn’t be touching him. Beads of sweat had started to form on his skin, causing his hair to stick to his forehead. A worry nagged at him, one that he pushed down and schooled his face into a neutral expression. Something he’d become good at over the years. Charlton had already been through so much, and Eliot despised the thought of something being wrong. He’d just barely become himself again. And what if that was the problem, that the amulet caused it somehow? But how to explain the golden cord. “We split a pizza, and he seemed fine.” He didn’t want to explain the pizza or where it had come from. “He put his head in his hands, he tried to stand but lost his balance. I helped him to the ground, then called you.”

Lipson nodded, reached for the amulet, looking it over. “We should get this looked at, but I’d rather not take it off when he’s in this state.”

“It would be better to ask him,” Eliot noted. He didn’t want Charlton to wake up and not be himself, or feel like he wasn’t in control.

He kept thinking about the energy, looking in the sky in the place he’d seen it. It could be that it was still some kind of connection to Fillory, but certainly not one they could follow if it caused Charlton so much pain that he went into shock.

“That’s fair.” Lipson tucked her equipment into her bag and stood, dusting off her hands on her skirt. “Now that we know he’s not astral protecting, and that he’s not injured, we can get him out of here.”

They loaded Charlton into the cart, and headed back to the infirmary.


	16. Burns My Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot is offended. Charlton learns his blood type. Lipson almost ruin’s Eliot’s day.

Charlton opened his eyes, for a moment trying to figure out where he was. He thought back through his tours of Brakebills and the scattering of memories from Eliot, and realized he lay in a treatment bed in the infirmary. A pain throbbed in his skull, the remains of what he assumed had brought him here. Turning his head to the side, he could see that it was now into the late afternoon. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten here. He had been eating the pizza with Eliot, watching the expressions cross his face. His vision had blurred, his heart thudding too hard in his chest, a sound like a thunderclap in his head, a thousand tiny voices, then pain like nothing else he’d ever felt before in his life. For a moment, he’d wondered if he was dying, then everything had gone dark.

“Well that was unpleasant,” he muttered, still feeling the thumping in his head. The lights above him seemed too bright, stabbing into his brain, and he groaned, half closing his eyes.

“Hey.” Eliot spoke from his left, and Charlton turned to look at him. Eliot put on a brave face, but Charlton could see the way his brows drew together, the strain on his face. He leaned forward and put a hand on Charlton’s arm. “You just about gave me a heart attack.”

“What happened?” He fought to think through the fog in his head, anchoring himself to the feeling of Eliot’s hand on his arm. Someone had removed his sweater and rolled up his sleeves, so Eliot’s hand brushed directly on his skin.

“I’m not sure. You collapsed.”

Charlton looked down at Eliot’s well manicured nails, the rings on his fingers, the details all too sharp. The concern on his face made Charlton’s heart ache and it was easier to look at his hands. “Were you that worried? Was it that bad?”

“I’m hard to worry.” Eliot rolled his eyes, but his hand stroked Charlton’s arm. “Yes, of course I was worried. It looked awful. You showed signs of shock, and said you were in pain.”

The touch felt nice and Charlton felt himself relaxing. Gods, he’d made it a whole day and he’d already managed to cause the wrong kind of excitement. Compared to the standard excitement they’d faced he supposed it could be worse. His eyelids felt heavy so he closed his eyes. “It hurts to see.” He drew a breath. He didn’t know what had happened to him, and the thought of something being wrong, of him losing control, caused a knot in his stomach. “Can you talk to me? So that I know you’re here. But quietly.”

“That’s something I appreciate about you,” Eliot murmured, moving his hand to brush over Charlton’s hand. “You say what you want.”

Charlton managed a smile, focusing on Eliot’s touch and the sound of his voice. “See what you say after a few more weeks of this.”

“Well, not of _this_ ,” Eliot scoffed. “How will you enjoy my charming company while stuck in the clinic?”

Charlton heard the clicking of heels before he heard Lipson’s voice. “The same way the rest of us do. In small doses when you’re stressed out.”

“Now that’s just rude, Eleanor.” Eliot’s fingers didn’t stop brushing over his skin.

“Charlton, how are you feeling?” Lipson asked. He didn’t look at her, but could hear her pulling up the stool from nearby and sitting on the other side of him.

“Still hurts behind my eyes. But not like before.” He turned his hand over and took Eliot’s hand, squeezing it. He could almost hear Eliot worrying, no matter how good he was at hiding it. Until it broke free.

He forced himself to focus on Lipson’s words. He explained what had happened, leaving out the part about the pizza being from Fillory. From the point where they sat down to lunch onward, he explained the sequence of events. It felt hard to tell it all, given that the sound of his own voice made his head hurt. While he talked, Lipson put something around his upper arm. It became very tight and he frowned, managing to open his eyes. “What’s that?”

“I’m checking your blood pressure. Which is much higher than I’d expect,” she added, taking off the cuff and setting it down on the table next to the bed. “Likely related to the pain, but something we should keep an eye on.” She exchanged a look with Eliot, then looked back to him. Pulling out a piece of colored glass, she peered at Charlton through it. It made her face look yellow. “There was something else I noticed, and it seems to be gone.”

Eliot took his hand off of Charlton’s to take the glass from her hand. He looked at Charlton through it, while Lipson kept speaking. “When I ran the usual series of tests, one showed what appeared to be psychic magic flowing either from you or to you. I’m not sure what it means, but it looks like you could be connected to something. It looks like a tether.”

Charlton hadn’t told Lipson that he was from Fillory, leaving it vague. Eliot had someone stuck in his head. It’s a long story. Ask Eliot about it. Which is what he and Eliot had agreed upon, in order to keep Charlton from having to explain any awkward situations. Likely because Eliot was a superior liar compared to Charlton. However, he was certain Fogg knew, and it was likely the information had made it to Lipson, at least in part.

That tether sounded like a line back to Fillory, but Fillory didn’t exist anymore. He had no connection to the new Fillory, so that couldn’t be it. His Fillory was gone, never to be seen again.

He had no time to mourn as stab of pain went through his head. He groaned. “Whatever it is, I hope it’s gone,” he muttered, closing his eyes and sinking down into the pillow. He’d give pillows on Earth that much, they were generally softer than the ones in Fillory. At least the ones he’d had.

“Hopefully, but there’s a good possibility it’ll happen again,” Lipson noted. “I’d like you to pay attention to the circumstances of it next time, if there is another incident, so that we can determine a cause. And hopefully prevent it, as we don’t know if this will cause lasting harm.” Charlton heard her shuffling papers and he opened his eyes to watch. “Normally, I’d keep you here under observation for a night.”

“Oh, now what a way to ruin _my_ day,” Eliot lamented, gesturing with a hand.

“It’s not all about you, Eliot,” Lipson reminded.

“Of course it is.” Eliot flashed a smile at her. “Who will I cook dinner for if you keep Charlton here all night?”

“I’m sure you could find someone to appreciate your cooking. And I’m glad to hear you’re back at that,” Lipson added.

“You can’t keep a good cook down.” Eliot pointed to Charlton. “He’s the only one I have to cook for.”

“I’m good for more that just eating food,” Charlton grumbled. He knew Eliot didn’t mean it that way, that this was just Eliot’s way of explaining things.

“Oh, I’m quite aware of that.” Eliot shifted in his chair, folding his hands over a knee. “But Lipson doesn’t need to know about that.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” She moved forward and put a hand on Charlton’s forehead, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a small object that looked like a pen. She shined it near one eye, then the other. He flinched at the brightness of it. “Everything seems normal,” she observed, putting two fingers against his wrist. He could feel his own pulse beating against her fingers. “I’m fine with letting you go, but you should drink some water, and take it easy today.” She paused. “No magic, including traveling. And you should avoid anything on the allergy list, just to be safe. I’ll run some tests to see what else you might be allergic to, but I have to take a small amount of blood.” Se searched his face. “Is that okay?”

Charlton had no idea what that process would look like. “Is that going to hurt?”

“A little, but it’s not bad. It’s usually pretty quick.”

Eliot snorted. “Oh, that depends entirely on how you are with the sight of blood.”

That reassured Charlton somewhat, given that he’d seen plenty of that over time. Sometimes in bad contexts, but it hadn’t ever bothered him, even then. “That’s fine, then.”

“We can sometimes do the tests without the blood, but it’s much easier this way. We don’t do a traditional allergy test here, it’s still magical, but the blood makes it far more accurate.”

That seemed much better than the strange tests that involved scratching his skin that he’d read about on the internet. Lipson moved to wrap something stretchy around his arm, and wiped the inside of his elbow down with something cold. She turned to a table and couldn’t see what she was doing, but she turned back with a vial and a needle. In truth, Charlton didn’t like the look of it.

“It’s going to pinch a little,” Lipson admitted. She looked up to Eliot. “Not a word from you.”

Eliot put his hands up in the air, shrugging. “My lips are sealed.”

Charlton blinked, confused. Lipson laid the needle against his skin and pushed it through the surface. “That wasn’t so bad-“ he started, then saw the blood filling the vial.

His head swam then he felt dizzy, and he looked away from it to stare at Eliot. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Eliot picked up a garbage can and held it up. “It would be a waste of a good pizza, but I’ve been there. Maybe not under these circumstances.”

Charlton squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head, trying to not think about what Lipson was doing. He heard Eliot put the can back down on the floor, then felt a hand on his head. Eliot’s thumb brushed over his forehead, slow, steady, gentle. It reassured him and he felt himself relaxing into the bed, his stomach churning less. It reminded him of when he was sick as a child and his sister had kept scratching gently at his scalp to keep him calm.

He hadn’t planned on Eliot’s casual affection, even though he’d seen it plenty of times with others. It helped, though. He’d never been through anything like this and he didn’t know what it meant, if something was wrong with him.

Lipson put something over the place where the needle stuck out, and he felt it slide out of his arm. He wondered if he looked as pale as he felt and he tried to focus on Eliot’s fingers in his hair.

“Hold your arm above your head and hold this.” She reached across and grabbed Charlton’s other hand, putting it over the white pad on the inside of his arm.

Charlton felt a little sick and could feel his arms trembling as he held them up. Eliot got to his feet and helped hold his arms up. The fabric of Eliot’s vest brushed over his cheek as he reached and Charlton turned into it, away from whatever Lipson was doing with his blood. He could feel the hard outline of Eliot’s flask, a constant presence inside of his vest even if he didn’t drink from it.

Charlton heard sounds of something rolling, moving, and he lifted his head to see another assistant park a cart nearby. It held a device with a series of discs arranged in circular layers. Lipson reached over and put something sticky and strange looking over the hole on his arm. Eliot backed up and sat back down in the chair, leaning over with his hands on his knees.

“No heavy lifting today. You’ve been through a lot today, so I suggest rest and hydration.” Lipson held up the vial of blood. “Do you want to watch this part?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m going to try,” Charlton offered, feeling uncertain.

“This is the easy part,” Eliot noted. “It’s actually interesting.”

Eliot knew the key words that would make Charlton want to see what was going on, and Charlton let himself smile a little despite the situation. “Okay, I’ll watch.” He reached over and rubbed at the sore spot on his arm, feeling the sting.

Lipson moved to the device on the cart, the vial of blood in her hand. She flipped it upside down and inserted it in the top. “The blood will be distributed to all of the plates, and any that light up indicate an allergic reaction,” she explained. “The brightness of the light indicates the strength of the reaction.”

Charlton narrowed his eyes, watching the little plates closely. He was hoping that there’d be no reaction, to anything; he didn’t want to worry about anything like that. He’d started reading packages of food and so many food items had so many ingredients, and he didn’t think he’d have the patience to scour every single on of them every time he wanted to get something from the store.

“You’re holding your breath,” Eliot offered, and Charlton let it out.

Lipson rotated the plates as the machine worked, looking over the three crowded tiers. It looked like it would be hard to try to watch all of them at once, but he noticed that Lipson’s assistant was also watching the plates. From Charlton’s part, he could see nothing lighting up, but he didn’t know if that was because his vision still felt fuzzy or if he was in the clear.

“Good news, I don’t see that you’re allergic to anything. Which is rather fascinating, really, given that the amulet in theory would change only how you’re seen. We may have to run further tests to find out why it’s changed you so thoroughly.”

“Does it matter?” Charlton asked. He didn’t like the idea of this being looked at any more closely. He just wanted it to hurry up and become normal, not something that required study. He didn’t want any more attention drawn to the strangeness of it all.

“It could.” She peered at one of the topmost plates. “You still have the same blood type as Hyman, which could be a coincidence, or it could indicate that the amulet is that effective.”

Charlton just felt tired, struck with the overwhelming urge to go back to the cottage, lay down for a few minutes, then get back to the spells. They only had so much time, so much weekend, left. “What happens next?”

“I’d suggest taking it easy today and seeing how you feel. Avoid the key allergy foods for a couple of hours, until I let these process further. Usually we know a reaction right away, but we let the blood process for an hour before determining a final diagnosis. We’ll call you if we find anything else.”

Under normal circumstances, Charlton would find this fascinating, but he was still processing what had happened. “Thanks.”

“Is he free to go? He’s had enough of being stuck somewhere to last a lifetime.”

“He can.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a piece of orange glass in a ring, handing it to Eliot. “I’ll need this back, but for now, you can check to see if the tether reappears. If so, contact me immediately.”

Eliot took it from her fingers, nodding. “Got it.” He tucked it into a pocket and looked back to Charlton. “I need to talk to Lipson for a few minutes, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be right here.” Charlton settled back into the bed. He wanted to go back to the cottage but he may as well rest while he waited.


	17. In Repair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot says a temporary goodbye to an old friend. Charlton learns more about blood tests than he planned.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Eliot?” Lipson asked, leading him down the hall to her office “And how much privacy does this conversation require?”

“Enough.” Eliot pushed the door shut and started pacing. The shape of the flask pushed into his stomach, secure inside his vest. He ignored it; carrying it with him had become habit over the years. “I’ve been thinking about my own blood test results.” At his last exam, Lipson had warned him against drinking or drug use. While in the past she’d let it slide because he’d been able to deal with it, his time with the Nameless had weakened many of his internal organs. They needed time to recover, to get back to a more functioning state. It was a slow, frustrating process, but there wasn’t another way through except for time and making good choices.

He hated being patient and he hated so many “good” choices but it’s what he had to work with. Not like he’d be doing a lot of partying anyway, but he missed the option of at least going over to the apartment in the city and getting fucked up. Some freedom to do what he wanted, but he’d lost even that.

When they talked previously, Lipson told him that he could drink on occasion. Yet his previous night’s drinking convinced him it may not be be an occasional thing. He felt like he could control this, but he also recognized that the fact that he thought that was already a potentially dangerous sign. He’d taken the chance last night, but he couldn’t risk it happening again. He hated it, but he had to face that he had to be diligent.

“How have you been doing, Eliot?” Lipson sat down in her chair and Eliot took a seat across from her, patting the flask subconsciously.

“I’m fine. Mostly.” He sighed. “Keeping busy helps.” He flattened his hand against the flask, closing his eyes for a moment. This was it. “I need you to do me a favor.”

“Anything. As long as it’s legal, at least.” Lipson smiled and leaned back in her chair.

Eliot took a deep breath and reached inside his vest, pulling out the flask. “I got drunk last night. Not as drunk as I could have been, but drunk enough. There’s too many problems to drink for, and I don’t want the temptation. I can’t afford the distraction from work.” _Or from Fillory, or from whatever this is growing between Charlton and I._ He held it up, looking it over. It had been like an old friend at times, a steady thing that he’d been able to fall back on when everything became too much. It never let him down, it never came up short. That was the beauty of the endless flask – Eliot had one expectation of it, and it always fulfilled that expectation.

It felt like a safety net, not the kind of safety net he wanted either but one where he dropped back into it whenever it seemed easiest to. It felt like walking a tightrope with a net; why ever get good at walking that tightrope if the net would catch you? He wanted to walk that tightrope without the safety net.

The hammered metal of the flash felt reassuring his hand, comfortable. He set it down in the middle of Lipson’s desk. “Can you keep this for me until I’m ready to get it back? I trust you not to let me talk you into letting me have it back before it’s time.”

Lipson looked from Eliot’s face to the flask, then back. “It’s not the only source of alcohol.”

“I don’t know if I can give it up completely,” he admitted, even though the statement made him uncomfortable. He had all the self control in the world when he came to his magic, why didn’t it apply to anything else in his life? “But I don’t want to use it to numb something. It’s not making me numb, it’s just making me feel like I’m a fuckup.”

“At least a regular bottle of alcohol won’t just keep giving you more,” Lipson noted, nodding. “How do we know when it’s time for me to give it back?”

“I don’t know,” Eliot admitted. “I guess we’ll play that by ear.” He couldn’t predict that. A week? A month? Months and months from now? He wanted to tell her that it would be after he found Fillory, but sometimes talking about finding a magical kingdom that others believed existed only in books… well, made him sound crazy. Even if Lipson knew. “Feel free to drink if you want, it’s not like it’s going to run out.”

In a way, it felt like letting an old friend go, but one that he needed to let go of. One that was only enabling him to harm himself.

“We’ll see. I think perhaps it’s time to lock it away for a bit, but I appreciate the offer.” Lipson picked the flask up and tucked it into a drawer in her desk. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

A rock dropped in Eliot’s stomach. “Well, it’s not like I have a lot of friends to trust right now.”

She looked at him with sympathy and he hated it because he didn’t want the sympathy. He didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him, he just wanted to fix it all so that he didn’t feel this huge gaping hole that was missing Margo, his friends, and Fillory.

“You’ve got Julia, Penny. Kady. And it looks like Charlton now, too.”

“I assume you figured that all out, then.” Eliot sighed. It would only get more complicated from here.

“It’s not like you’re subtle. I know he’s going to be a student, but if I’m being honest, I don’t think either of you should let that change anything.”

Eliot smiled. “Are you encouraging me to break that particular rule?”

“It’s less of a rule and more of a guideline.” Lipson regarded him. “You seem more relaxed. And you just smiled.” She smiled back at him.

He could feel the flush in his face but that was fine. “It’s been one day, Eleanor. I don’t know where it’s even going.” He ran his hands down the front of his jacket, smoothing it down. “We’re friends with benefits right now.” He paused, wondering if that casual statement sold Charlton short, something he certainly did not want to do. He didn’t mind where this had started to go. And he had to admit when he said friends he meant… really good friends. “We’ve become close over the last number of months that he’s been here. This is just another level. Or complication.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. And it’ll go where it goes. But I’m glad you’re giving it a chance. I’m glad you’ve got a friend, and if it’s more, well, that’s between you two.”

Eliot thought of their date the night before, about how it made him feel. Happy, content, satisfied. Being with Charlton had made him feel like he could be himself. “I always assumed I was hopeless. But we did go on a date yesterday, so I suppose that means something. It felt right.” Eliot let out a slow sigh. Talking to Lipson about relationships had not been in his plans, but maybe this was how the world was changing. He wouldn’t have dreamed of opening up to someone else other than his closest friends, yet here he was speaking the truth to someone who was once his professor.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Eliot, it’s that it’s never too late.” She regarded him across the table. “I know you don’t want to talk about everything you’ve been through, but have you been talking to someone?”

Eliot forced in a breath then let it out. “I’m fine.”

“Eliot, you lost one of your best friends,“ Lipson said, her voice soft.

 _One of your best friends._ Sometimes he forgot that the rest of the world didn’t know, what Quentin had meant to him. They’d never seen them together except as friends, never seen them kiss, never known about their life together. Who would have believed them if they’d told them? Henry, perhaps, with his way of knowing other timelines. If he knew, he’d never said.

Lipson didn’t know. Alice had known but they’d only talked on the mountain. She’d been the only one he’d heard say it, how much it hurt. Margo knew but Margo had always known. And of course Fen knew. Lipson appeared concerned, and she didn’t even know the whole of it.

He didn’t walk to talk about that, about Quentin, about losing him, about the Nameless. And certainly not right this moment. “I talk a little to Charlton.” As soon as he said it, he knew that Lipson would see through it. Of course he talked to Charlton, but he held so much pain inside of him, from the Nameless, from losing Quentin, so many things he couldn’t put words to for himself, much less to someone else. He should have started with Margo, he should have told her how hard it had been watching himself do horrible things to the people he cared about while he could only helplessly watch. All he’d told her is that he remembered it all.

The sadness in Quentin’s eyes every time he’d looked at not-Eliot. The desperation in Margo’s face. The way they’d flinched away from him. He felt guilt for telling Charlton the little that he had, given that he’d been a part of the Nameless for over a thousand years. Charlton seemed fine, which only led Eliot to wonder what was wrong with him for being such a mess about it. His childhood, killing Mike, the Beast, the loss of magic, he’d been able to drink all of that away. He was out of those options now.

“I know you aren’t asking for my advice,” Lipson noted, folding her hands on the desk, “but maybe you should open up more. I’m here if you ever want to talk. You have friends. And you could talk more than a little to Charlton.”

“He lived in my head, Eleanor, he already knows.” Eliot sighed. Charlton had seen all of it. He’d even seen the glimpses of Eliot’s worst pain, from a distance. He’d seen the memories, the failures, the bullshit.

“Eliot, you don’t always talk through what’s going on because you want the other person to know. Sometimes you do it because you need to talk it through for yourself. And just because he was in your mind, it isn’t a substitute for communication.”

“I know that!” Eliot snapped. “I’m not stupid.” He heard the edge in his own voice, and he slumped in the chair. This was it, this was the first step. To Lipson, of all people. “It’s easier to just let it go and not bring it up because he already knows.”

“Is all of this because he’s safe and you don’t have to tell him?”

Eliot thought about that, about how much he enjoyed Charlton’s company. What’s that what he was doing? It didn’t ring true; comfortable, maybe, but not safe. The first time someone had expressed an interest in Eliot, even knowing most of his issues. And for someone like Eliot, someone already knowing that much felt like the scariest thing in the world. “I like that he knows, but it’s not because he’s safe. It’s because…” Eliot took a deep breath.

It’s because Charlton knew so, so much about the worst of him, and had still not only remained his friend, but proposed more. Charlton accepted those things, and had reached out a hand anyway. Well, a bit more than a hand, if Eliot was being honest.

Charlton trusted him. And he trusted Charlton. He liked Charlton, his commentary, his observations on the world. He cared about Charlton more than he wanted to admit to Lipson, for sure.

“I trust him,” Eliot said simply. Lipson knew he doesn’t give his trust lightly anymore, he hoped that was enough.

“That’s a lot.” She pushed her chair back and stood. “Let’s go get Charlton checked out of here and back to the cottage.”

They walked back towards the space in the infirmary by the windows, where Charlton still laid in bed. He looked to be having a lively conversation with the assistant, who was showing him a more detailed overview of the analysis machine. The assistant had rolled it closer to the bed. His eyes were now alight with curiosity, his hands animated as he pointed at some of the disks.

“He looks like he’s doing better,” Lipson noted. She glanced over at Eliot. “He’s got a lot of energy, and he’s sharp.”

“He is, and he’s straightforward about things. And he’s patient.” Eliot slowed his step, watching. The sun that had started to drop in the sky came through the window and shined off Charlton’s hair. “Otherwise known as putting up with my shit.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind,” she observed. “How long was he stuck inside your mind?”

“Long enough that he could have given up many times.” Yet there Charlton still was, the voice in his mind now made flesh.

“Is it different now that he’s wearing the amulet versus before?”

“It absolutely is,” Eliot said, no hesitation. This was as far as he was willing to take this conversation with Lipson, however. “And that’s the extent of the analysis I’ll accept, I think you’ve done enough poking and prodding for the day.”

“That’s my job, Eliot,” she reminded, as they came back into the room.

Charlton barely looked up from his inspection of the allergy testing device as they returned. “So this one is for cats, this one for dogs, and this one on the next level is for grass?”

The assistant nodded, tucking a strand of her long blond hair behind an ear. “Yes. They’re arranged in groups, the top tier is basic information like blood type, white and red blood cell counts, and so on. The next one down is all animals, followed by environmental, followed by food allergies.”

Charlton peered at it, his fingers brushing the edges of one of the plates. He looked up as Eliot approached. “This is so fascinating, it’s part magic and part science!”

“The two have a lot of overlap,” Lipson noted, nodding to her assistant. “Anything come up?”

“Nothing. Even good numbers for cholesterol.” She flipped through a file and held it up an aged, slightly yellowed page. “We didn’t have any pre-transfiguration data, but it’s an improvement over the numbers we previously had on file for Hyman Cooper.”

“We should have done a baseline when we first saw you, but we figured we’d let you adjust first. We didn’t anticipate this development.” Lipson took the folder and looked over the results, while Eliot hovered over her shoulder, reading.

The results were side by side in the file, and he could see the differences in several values. It’s possible that some of those differences were the result of the tests that were used on Hyman were many years old, but most of the tests used in magical medicine hadn’t changed much over the years. They were ahead of their time then, and on par with modern technology now. It’s also possible that some of the improvements in numbers were due to Charlton eating better, although Eliot doubted it since he hadn’t seen Charlton eat a vegetable that wasn’t in a curry or in a taco in months, with the sole exception of carrots. He read through the numbers and the normal value ranges beside them, and everything looked to be in range. “Am I reading this correctly in that all of these numbers look normal?”

“They’re very normal,” Lipson affirmed. She reviewed the two pages, then frowned. She looked up at her assistant. “Erica, can you give us a few minutes?” The assistant nodded and left, and a knot formed in Eliot’s stomach. What had she found that she wouldn’t talk about in front of Erica?

Lipson waited for Erica to leave the room before she spoke. “We’ve got some strange results in here, in regards to previous infections. Hyman had chicken pox as a child, but Charlton carries none of the antibodies.” She tapped the paper. “He doesn’t carry antibodies for anything except the common cold, and a variation of the flu that I don’t have on record.”

“I caught the cold from Eliot last month,” Charlton offered helpfully.

Eliot saw where this was going, and he closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. “Maybe it’s some side effect of the transfiguration?” He opened his eyes and stepped closer to Charlton, setting a hand on his arm.

“It’s possible.” Lipson looked at Charlton, who appeared to sink deeper into the pillow. “Or you’re from somewhere that doesn’t have the same infections as we do.”

Eliot watched Charlton try to force a confused expression on his face and fail. Not wanting Charlton to in this situation, he spoke up. “Eleanor, you can’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”

“Doctor patient confidentiality. But I can’t know if everything is fine if I don’t know what I’m working with.”

He exchanged a look with Charlton, not wanting to tell Lipson without his consent. Charlton sighed, then nodded. “Fine, then. He’s from Fillory. I brought him back from Fillory.”

A pin could have dropped in the resulting silence, and Eliot would have welcomed it. This wasn’t the conversation he wanted to have this afternoon, but what else could he do at this point? Besides, if something was wrong, he’d rather Lipson have most of the parts of the puzzle in place. The time for hiding Charlton’s origins so aggressively was now over. A part of him felt relieved, like a burden was lifted. One less secret. And if it was going to be anyone, at least Lipson could keep a secret. 

Lipson looked from Charlton to Eliot. “It’s not like no one has ever come here from Fillory, Eliot.”

“Yes, but as a passenger in my head, and placed inside a body from Earth, and wearing a transfiguration amulet.” Eliot sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. His blood pressure would need checking at this rate, no doubt it would ruin his two month streak of keeping it under control.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Eleanor snapped the folder shut. “Charlton, how old are you?”

Charlton winced. “I don’t know. I was 29, but I got stuck somewhere and now I’m somewhere over a thousand years old.”

“I won’t include this in the file yet,” she noted, “but thank you for telling me. We need to get you a round of vaccinations as soon as possible, as you have no immunities to any viruses on Earth.”

Eliot sighed. More needles, and more questions. He didn’t want any more questions. “Yeah well not today.”

“I think Charlton has had enough needles for today,” Lipson added.

“I’m happy to never see one again,” Charlton affirmed.

“That’s the Earth tradeoff. We have Italian food, but also all this crap.”

They got Charlton up out of bed and onto his feet. He wobbled as he stood, putting a hand on the edge of the bed to steady himself. Lipson let them know that she’d contact Charlton with a time to come back to get checked out, and then released him.

Eliot walked with him back to the cottage, giving him space to walk but staying close in case he needed any help. He didn’t want to hover too much, but he also didn’t know what had really happened. They didn’t speak much along the way back to the cottage, as Eliot didn’t want to have those conversations where anyone could hear. Instead, he checked on Charlton every few minutes, watching the mix of excitement and deep thought cross Charlton’s face. He had something he seemed to be holding back.

Whatever it was, it would have to wait until they got back.


	18. Here Comes The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlton heard voices. Eliot remembers burning a book.

As they walked back to the cottage, they crossed the large green area. Charlton had laid here once in the grass, trying to deal with how overwhelming open spaces were. They still were, and even more so now. He crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his head down and stepping towards Eliot.

The thoughts made him more dizzy than he’d been before and he stumbled. He caught his footing, but Eliot reached out and took his hand.

“Now don’t fall over,” Eliot chided gently. “How are you?”

Charlton felt the warmth of Eliot’s hand and he anchored himself to that. He wanted to tell Eliot he’d be fine, but he didn’t mind the help. “I’m dizzy. And open spaces are still difficult.”

“Then I’m the ideal companion,” Eliot commented. “I can provide distraction, and I’m telekinetic. Good luck falling on my watch. Your cold hands, though, need work. But I am an excellent hand warmer.”

“I’m sure you can warm more than that,” Charlton noted.

“Oh now you’ve definitely spent too much time with me.”

Back in the cottage, Charlton took a seat on one of the couches, feeling a tiredness sink into him. “That walk has never felt so long,” he declared, holding up his hands to look at them. They shook, so he set them down on his legs and tried to relax.

“Oh, wait until the cottage changes location and you don’t know where it is. Those are the longest walks back here I’ve ever had, especially when I’m drunk.” Eliot sat down next to Charlton, crossing one leg over the other. He draped his arm over the back of the couch. “There’s something you weren’t telling Lipson.”

Charlton nodded. “I didn’t want to prompt more… tests.” Shifting his position, he tucked a leg up onto the couch so he could face Eliot. “I can’t be sure, but I wonder if I’m still connected to Fillory somehow. Even though it’s gone.” He knew it didn’t make any sense, but he wanted it to make sense. He wanted it to be true. He also didn’t want to give Eliot a false hope if that’s not what was happening.

“I was wondering if that was it,” Eliot admitted, and Charlton could almost see him pushing down his reaction, his hope.

“I don’t know how to tell.” Charlton sucked in a deep breath. He didn’t want Eliot to hold that hope back, he needed that hope, but Charlton also understood that sometimes that was just Eliot’s way of not letting himself be let down. “I’m certain that I heard voices, somewhere between the thunderclap and when I collapsed.”

“It looked a lot like the cord that connects some people psychically,” Eliot added. He paused, thinking. “Could you be connected to the people somehow? They still exist, and they’re in Fillory.”

Charlton blinked, processing that. “That would make some sense. I’m certainly related to many people there, and they’re still my people.” He met Eliot’s gaze. “It’s entirely possible that we could follow that thread right back there.”

Eliot’s hands lifted in a gesture of excitement. “If you can, then we just have to figure out the bridge spell to link the two together.”

“We may not need the bridge spell right away,” Charlton pointed out. “If Penny and I can get there once, we can bring people back and forth.”

“That’s true, but…” Eliot searched Charlton’s face. “We should keep working on the bridge spell, and we should still get to the Library. I’d feel much better if we didn’t need to rely on disrupting your lives. You’re still new to traveling and may not be able to make the time for a while, and Penny requires Hope to travel.”

“And the last thing we want to do is put Hope at risk, too.” He saw the wisdom in Eliot’s words. He didn’t want to take any more chances losing people he cared about.

“I don’t want you at risk, either.” Eliot put a hand on Charlton’s. “Whatever happened to you today, it’s not something that you should go through again.”

“It would be worth it to get to Fillory. I’d only have to do it once,” he suggested.

Eliot shook his head. “Not like today. That was too much.”

“I wonder if I could control it if I ate the pizza more slowly,” Charlton mussed. “Find a balance where we could establish it but not to the point of being overwhelming.”

Eliot’s face lit up. “If we could do it more slowly…” He reached into his pocket and fished out the piece of glass that Lipson had given him. He held up the chain it was on and let it spin gently in the air between them. “We could see when it happens with this, and stop before the pain starts.”

“If that’s even possible.” Charlton reached out and plucked the piece of colored glass out of the air, looking at Eliot through it. He saw nothing except the world tinted in yellow. “But it seems like it’s worth a shot.” Setting it down on the couch between them, he sighed, pushing the chain around with a hand. “I’m sorry we didn’t get farther with the research, though.”

Eliot snorted. “Please. This might be more of a breakthrough than any of that would have been.” He gestured with a hand. “But I don’t want it to put you at risk. We’re going to have to be very careful, and if we do this, you’ll have to tell me when something goes wrong.”

“I promise, I will.” Charlton nodded. He didn’t want to take any chances with himself, either. The last thing he wanted was to injure his body after he’d just gotten it back. “Do you think we could go over the spells and notes a bit more?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to rest?” Eliot asked, brushing his fingers over Charlton’s shoulder.

“I don’t think I can rest,” Charlton admitted, although his head did hurt.

They spread the spells out over the dining room table again, covering the whole of the surface. Some of the spells were related to the bridge spell, with similar results but felt less complete. Others for finding something that was lost, all of which required something to use to track, making them unsuitable for their purpose. He’d also taken a lot of notes about traveler abilities, the best that he could. He didn’t know enough to truly make sense of it yet, how he could keep Hyman’s traveler abilities but somehow loose his allergies. As far as Charlton could guess, he was now himself, and while that could overwrite the Hyman specific attributes, perhaps it didn’t remove the part of him that was magical creature.

Eliot made coffee for himself and tea for Charlton, and they sipped at it while leaning away from the spells spread out over the surface. Neither wanted to take a chance on spilling something onto the precious spells laid out in front of them.

A couple of hours of study and they’d gotten no closer to discovering anything. Charlton didn’t know if they were still having the rush from what had happened earlier, or if their focus had started to suffer after a whole day of reading through books in the library.

For the last twenty minutes, Eliot had started to become quiet, distracted. He held his almost empty mug in his hands, staring out the window to the trees beyond. Charlton wondered what he was thinking about, missing the easy communication they’d had before, but at the same time, it felt better with them both able to draw boundaries.

Charlton got to his feet and took the almost empty mug out of Eliot’s hands. “I’ll go refill this for you.”

Eliot looked from the mug to Charlton’s face. “I’m fine for now.” He watched as Charlton set the mug on the mantle above the fireplace. “I think we’re going to have to go to the Library,” he said, looking back down at the spells spread out across the table.

“But you said it could take months,” Charlton protested, shaking his head.

“It should. Between the waiting list, and the… restrictions… placed on me.” He shrugged.

Charlton wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. “What did you do?” he asked, taking a seat in the closest chair.

“It’s a long story.” Eliot tilted his head back, closing his eyes and rubbing at them. “It’s not just the spell, though. We should try to see if there’s any more in depth traveler knowledge, or any record of a situation similar to yours. I have a possible solution to get there faster, but it’s not going to be good.” He pulled his hands away and got to his feet. “I’m going to go see Henry about it.”

Charlton didn’t move from his seat, but looked up at Eliot. “Do you need me to come with you, or can I stay here and keep studying these?” He wanted Eliot to know he was there for him, but he didn’t have to go everywhere that Eliot did. He wanted to give him some space, and knew he needed some space of his own, too. He’d been alone a long time, and sometimes he needed that space alone again. Time to think, time to just read or in this case, review spells and notes.

“I think it’s best if you stay here.” Eliot put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be a difficult conversation” He paused for a moment, his expression far away. “I’ll tell you about it when I get back, though. I think that would help.”

It had been the first time that Charlton had heard Eliot commit to a timeframe to open up and talk about something. Small progress, but progress none the less. He lifted a hand to put it on Eliot’s. “I’ll be here.”

“Thanks.” Eliot pulled his hand back and pulled on a coat. “When I get back, I’ll start dinner.” He slipped out the door, and Charlton picked back up his tea, turning his attention back to the spells.

He might have a connection to Fillory, but it wouldn’t mean anything if they couldn’t build a reliable way to go back and forth. There had to be a way, and if Charlton could help find it, he would.


	19. A Negotiation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot learns why one may want to put a cat in a sling.

Eliot dreaded this conversation. He had dreaded it for months. Since before he graduated, through the negotiations of him becoming a professor, even just last week Henry had brought it up to him. No doubt Henry didn’t want to talk to him on the weekend about it, but he had to open the conversation now or he’d lose his nerve for it.

The walk across the Brakebills campus helped clear his head, something he’d need in order to open up this particular can of worms. Brakebills seemed to always be alive with some kind of magic, from the hum of it that felt like it ran through everything, to the clusters of students practicing their casting outside. Minor spells, ones that could be done without the wards that classrooms had, but still fascinating to watch, even now. Some gathered for a practice game of welters. Others studied independently. He saw a couple of students from his classes, one of which hadn’t applied themself very well to the lessons so far. Yet here Geoff was, with a bag of small oranges, lifting them one by one to join others in the air. He made it up to five before the oranges came falling to the ground.

Geoff rounded them up and started over, and Eliot hid his own smile as he walked. They picked up more than they seemed to. It helped lighten his mood, although only marginally. It reminded him too much of himself, of always giving the appearance of indifference, of not trying hard in class but always pulling off the spells anyway. Sometimes he wondered what shit these kids had seen in order for them to be good at magic.

Not going to Henry’s office felt strange, like he was crossing a line for coming to Henry’s residence on a weekend. He didn’t even know if Henry would be home, he was sure that the Dean had a life outside of being Dean. Then again, having to carry a cat everywhere surely put a damper on any sort of social plans.

He knocked on the door, waiting. He’d only give it a minute and then he’d go, that seemed to make the most sense. Even as he thought it, he knew he was trying to work his way out of it. Out of this. But he’d come this far in this negotiation, he may as well go all the way.

The door swung open to reveal Henry in a dark blue sweater, frowning at him as he held his oversized orange cat in his arms. Cat fur covered his sweater. “I have office hours for professors, Eliot, there’s no need to come all the way out here.”

“This isn’t about work,” Eliot declared, feeling more confident than he felt. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Where else would I be?” Henry hefted the cat. “If I could teach this damned cat to sit in a sling, I could consider taking up golfing. Have you ever tried to keep a cat in a sling, Eliot?”

Eliot blinked. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you’ll go crazy if you don’t.” He paused to dislodge one of the cat’s claws from his sweater.. “So if this isn’t about work, why are you here?”

Eliot noticed that some of the cat’s claws were covered in pink caps, but not all of them. “It’s about the question you’ve been asking me.”

Henry stared at him. “In that case, come in. It’s about time.”

Eliot stepped through the door and followed Henry to his living room, taking a seat in a large plush chair. “So you’ve thought about what I asked you,” Henry asked as he sat down in a chair across from Eliot.

“I have, but I need something in return.” Eliot drew a breath. “I need to get moved up the list to get to the Library, as soon as possible.”

Henry frowned. “I don’t have to tell you how hard that is. Especially for someone who has been banned from the Library for life.”

“They lifted that ban when I became a professor!” Eliot protested.

“They forgive, but they do not forget.” Henry put the cat in his lap, and laid one arm on the armrest of the chair, tapping at the dark red fabric with his fingers. “I assume this is related to your search for Fillory. Are you sure you’re ready to go through Quentin’s room in order to do this?”

Eliot was not ready, not at all. For everything that he’d faced down over the years, this made his guts twist up into a knot. The thought of revising Quentin’s belongings, revisiting what remained of Quentin’s life, terrified him. He knew it would hurt, but he didn’t see any other bargaining chip. Henry had been on him for months about this, about clearing the room out. He’d offered to send a crew to take care of it, and Eliot had refused. He’d put it off because it would feel final, like it was done. Once those remains of Quentin’s life were removed, that’s it. It was all over except memories and whatever Eliot might choose to keep. If anything; he couldn’t think of anything that belonged to Quentin that would come close to easing the ache in his heart.

“I’m not ready for this shit,” Eliot admitted. “But I need to get to the Library, so if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.”

Henry’s fingers tucked into the cat’s fur. “I told you I’d hire a fucking crew, Eliot, but you said no.”

“And I still say no. It’s my responsibility.” He shook his head. Everything in that room had meant something to Quentin at some point, and he didn’t want it to just disappear. He didn’t know if he’d want any of it, but he felt like it deserved a proper send off. He wasn’t going to give shit to Quentin’s mother, but maybe there’d be things that should be kept. By him, Julia, or one of their other friends.

“So when would you like to do this, Eliot?”

“Tomorrow.” If he didn’t do it now, right away, he’d think about it. He didn’t want to have to think about it, to stay in that state of wondering how much it will hurt, he just wanted to get it over with before he lost his nerve. Then get a pass for him and Charlton to go to the library, and be able to find any information he needed that might help him find Fillory, Margo, Fen, Alice, Josh.

Henry frowned at him, shaking his head. “That won’t work. It takes time to organize the crew, and the office of student affairs is closed until Monday. There’s nothing I can do until then, the best I can offer is next Saturday.”

Eliot slammed his hand down on the edge of the chair. He didn’t want to wait that long, he just wanted it over with. He didn’t want to _wait_ , it had already been so much waiting, so much dwelling. “There’s no other option?”

“I can unlock the room and you can go through his things now, and then the crew can take care of the rest next week.”

Eliot thought about that, of a week of Quentin’s room being unlocked. Of looking at all of those things, remembering them, what they mean, and then knowing it’s all just there. So easy to just keep revisiting it. He pictured himself sitting in the room losing his shit every night for a week. He could avoid it all now by not walking to that part of the house, but remembering everything it contained and then dealing with it for a week would be too much. He’d have too much time to think about it. “What if next weekend doesn’t work for me?”

“Then you can do the week after, or you can pick a weeknight. But I’d better not hear that you call in sick the day after.”

Eliot hated Henry’s tone, he hated that Henry was _right_. “Fine. Next week it is.”

“I’ll make the arrangements, and I’ll unward the door when you ask.” Henry regarded Eliot. “Have you thought about moving to the professor’s quarters?”

“I will. Eventually.” One thing at a time, and he didn’t feel like justifying himself to Henry. He closed his eyes for a moment a took a breath. “How are you doing, Henry?”

“Oh, I’m just peachy. I feed my cat, I pet my cat, I shower with my cat.” He rolled up a sleeve to show a series of scratches along his arm. “But I’m alive, and it’s better than I hoped for.”

Eliot was struck by the grace with which Henry faced this down. “If there’s anything I can do, just ask.”

“For now,” Henry said, lifting the cat and getting to his feet, “you can leave me to eat my dinner. But my door is always open, even if it’s closed.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Eliot smiled and got up out of his chair, and wondered if he should explain that Charlton could now travel. He determined that perhaps that was Charlton’s conversation to have, so he headed back to the Physical Kid’s Cottage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn’t a song lyric; I had a hard time pinning one down so I just named in appropriately this time.


	20. If You Need Proof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot changes his shirt. Charlton says Eliot’s last name.

Charlton lifted his head when the door to the cottage opened, and realized he’d drifted off. He’d had the good sense to clear the spells out of the way before he’d folded his arms on the table’s surface and rested his head. He’d meant to close his eyes for a minute, but he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He blinked a few times, disoriented, still a little dizzy from his collapse earlier in the day.

Eliot closed the door behind him, and turned to Charlton. “Nodded off?”

Charlton winced, looking at the scattering of papers on the table. “Yes. It was a long day. I didn’t make any progress.” He studied Eliot’s face. Something in his expression said that he’d had a difficult conversation, as Eliot had predicted. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Eliot said, too quickly. “I’m just going to go upstairs and get changed so I can make dinner.” He paced through the dining room and tousled Charlton’s hair, his fingers running over his scalp.

It felt so _good_ and Charlton smiled, leaning towards Eliot. “You know I can tell when you’re not actually fine,” he murmured.

“Come upstairs with me while I get changed. I’ll tell you about it,” Eliot offered.

Charlton looked up and the pained expression on Eliot’s face concerned him, so he got up and followed Eliot up the stairs. Eliot held himself rigid, tense, his steps landing hard on the stairs.

“I went to see Henry,” Eliot admitted as he opened the door to his room. He went to his closet and started digging around, Charlton presumed for a shirt he didn’t mind getting food on.

Charlton sat down on the edge of the bed. “To ask about going to the Library?”

“Yeah.” Eliot pulled a shirt out and came over to sit next to Charlton. He held the shirt in his hands. “I had to make an agreement with him to get moved up the list. He’s been on me to clean out Q’s old room, and it’s the only thing I had to offer. He needs the room for incoming students, and he’s been threatening to send a crew out here for a couple of months. But I told him I wanted to go through it first.” He balled his hands up around the shirt, twisting it in his grasp.

Charlton didn’t speak, he just waited and listened.

“I don’t want to go through it,” Eliot admitted, starring down at his hands. “But I hate the idea of everything just going away without someone determining what matters. I don’t know if there’s anything I want to keep. Or if any of our friends would want. But I’m the one here to make the decisions, so I’m going to go through it. Decide what parts of his life stay, which go. Which are donated or thrown away.” He drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to do all of this but I can’t bear the thought of it just going somewhere. Of not knowing.” He closed his eyes. “All I’ll ever have left of him are my memories and whatever I keep from that room, it’s a burden I’m not ready for.”

Charlton shifted and regarded Eliot. “Are you okay with being touched right now?”

“Yeah. I’d actually really like that,” Eliot admitted.

Charlton took Eliot’s hands in his, gently pulling the shirt loose from his hands. He ran his thumbs over Eliot’s knuckles. Quentin was a delicate topic, and he didn’t want to startle Eliot. He chose his words with care. “I’m willing to help you if you need it, but perhaps you should talk to Julia. She knew him for a long time, and she’d be able to help you.” He didn’t say it, but his thought was that Eliot would be a lot less likely to hold back his emotions if Charlton wasn’t there. Not because of Charlton, but because Eliot seemed to still struggle bringing up Quentin. He needed the space to hurt. He needed someone with him who Eliot wouldn’t worry he’d hurt with his grief.

Charlton didn’t expect that to go away quickly. It was Eliot’s deepest pain that he hadn’t yet learned to live with, and this process was going to be slow. Eliot needed someone that also had that connection to Quentin, someone who understood the significance and sacrifice of Quentin’s life. Charlton wouldn’t be here if not for Quentin, either. He owed Quentin not just that, but for loving Eliot. Quentin deserved to be remembered. Charlton vowed to help Eliot in any way that he could.

Eliot nodded, looking down at Charlton’s hands. He shifted his gaze to make eye contact with Charlton. “I feel like I don’t want to burden anyone, but I think you’re right. She’d probably want to help.”

Charlton saw the look in Eliot’s eyes, the pain, the emotions he held back from the world. He lifted a hand and brushed it over Eliot’s cheek. “We’re all here for you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Eliot stared at him, then leaned forward, letting Charlton put his arms around him and hold him. He shook in Charlton’s arms, and Charlton wrapped his fingers around the back of Eliot’s head. “Can you be there when I’m done with it?” He felt like he forced in a breath and he shook a little less after he’d spoken. “This…” He trailed off, and Charlton waited before speaking.

“I’ll be there,” he promised. He kissed the top of Eliot’s head.

“Thank you.” Eliot let himself be held, some tension draining from his body. “When did you become so relaxing, Charlton?”

Charlton smiled, closing his eyes. It was such an emotional and physical relief to be able to comfort him with more than words, to feel Eliot’s breathing even out. “Maybe I’ve always been relaxing.” Eliot let out a snort of laughter. “Okay, I deserved that.”

They sat in silence, Eliot putting his arms around Charlton’s waist. Charlton felt his own breath in his chest, even, and he reveled in that feeling. In the way Eliot fit in his arms.

“I know this is weird,” Eliot admitted, “but I’m glad you asked me what you asked me yesterday.”

A warmth spread through Charlton, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment by saying the wrong thing. Instead, he breathed in the smell of Eliot’s hair. He wondered if Eliot consciously realized that he’d just opened up, on purpose. Charlton wasn’t about to bring attention to it.

After a few moments, Eliot straightened and stood, stretching. He turned slightly away from Charlton and unbuttoned his shirt, taking it off. He set it over the back of a chair and then took off his undershirt. Charlton watched him pause and glance at the mirror, and Charlton looked away, not wanting Eliot to feel self conscious. He knew that Eliot traced the scars on his stomach, he could see it out of the corner of his eye. The way Eliot’s hands moved over them.

Eliot started to pull on the shirt, but stopped, turning to Charlton. His hands moved over the scars and there was a moment of vulnerability on his face.

Charlton kept his eyes on Eliot’s face and reached out, putting his hands over Eliot’s but making no move to pull Eliot’s hands away. That was for Eliot to decide.

Eliot stepped up next to Charlton and slid his hands out from under the other’s, putting them on each side of Charlton’s face. “It’s okay. I’m not trying to hide them from you. They just remind me of too fucking much. How much life hurts, how much people loved me. What they did to save me.”

Charlton’s hands now rested on Eliot’s stomach. And he remembered. He remembered Margo crying, her desperate pleas for Eliot to stay, please don’t go, _I need you._ Eliot in the hospital.

Charlton put his hands on Eliot’s hips and leaned forward, placing a single kiss between the scars. They’d faded, but they’d always be there, two wounds that not even time would heal. “When you were in the hospital, I know you couldn’t hear me, but I was there.” He moved to kiss one of the scars. He didn’t want to tell Eliot how he’d waited in his happy place for some sign that he would wake up, how he’d managed to finally venture out and look for Eliot. How he’d sat on the couch with his head in his hands, saying _please come back._ “I couldn’t sleep at all, or go anywhere else. Not until I knew you were going to live.”

“Are you sure that’s not just because I would have taken you with me?”

Charlton thought about how he thought he was going to die when Margo hit Eliot with the axes, about how he’d thought he was about to cease to exist. He couldn’t even call it dying at that point, as he hadn’t really been alive. “Well, that would have been unpleasant.” He look up at Eliot. “But not as unpleasant as a world without Eliot Waugh.”

Eliot swallowed and pulled Charlton against him. Charlton closed his eyes, his cheek resting against Eliot’s warm skin and the scars. Eliot drew in a deep breath and Charlton focused on that, on Eliot. On the trust Eliot placed in him.

“Thank you,” Eliot murmured, his fingers brushing along Charlton’s neck.

Charlton almost told him thanks weren’t necessary, but instead wrapped his arms around Eliot. Sometimes nothing needed to be said.


	21. Human Nature At It’s Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot is a chair. Charlton has long eyelashes.

Eliot prepared a simple meal from what he could find in the cottage. It wasn’t much (thank goodness for the freezer), but he managed to pull together a pecan encrusted chicken with a side of garlic mashed potatoes.

Charlton seemed to enjoy even the most simple of food offerings. He stole a soda from Todd’s bottomless stash (since Todd won’t know the difference anyway), and sipped at it while Eliot cooked.

If he was going to have an audience, he may as well put some flourish it in. So that’s what Eliot did, moving through the kitchen in a blue and gray apron. He felt like Charlton was too good to his cooking ego, what he’d made tonight hadn’t been anything special, but all food seemed amazing from Charlton’s point of view and Eliot would take it. It felt good to be useful outside of work, and it felt good to enjoy the simplicity of cooking. Cooking had a simplicity to it, it didn’t have changing Circumstances, or the same risks of getting it wrong.

After dinner, Eliot looked out the window to the dark outside. They’d picked up the assortment of spell pages and put them away, and ended up curled up on the couch. Eliot wasn’t going to get drunk, but he indulged in a single cocktail, sipping at it as he leaned against Charlton. Charlton’s arms rested around Eliot.

It all felt so fast, but Eliot supposed he never did things by halves anyway. And it felt good to feel the casual level of acceptance from Charlton, to be able to open up to him. The way Charlton checked with him, asked permission, did his best not to assume. He could tell that Charlton tried to not take advantage of what he knew about Eliot.

In the evening, Eliot fucked Charlton, the dim lights in Eliot’s room casting shadows across Charlton’s face. His moans, the way his hand reached up and held onto a bar on the headboard.

The day before, their positions had been reversed, and Eliot had watched Charlton move above him. After the extended foreplay the day before, the moments feeling each other out, touching each other for the first time, tonight felt more urgent but also more honest.

He’d asked Charlton if he was sure, if he was up for it. Charlton rolled his eyes and told him it’s not like he hasn’t done this before.

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be treated right,” Eliot had said, caressing Charlton’s face.

“I trust you,” Charlton said, simple and clear.

They’d still taken it slow; Eliot didn’t want to assume anything about what Charlton would be up for, and even if Charlton insisted he was fine, Charlton didn’t exactly have experience being fucked in his current state, either. He could fuck (oh god could he), although as soon as Eliot thought it he wanted to take it back. Charlton would call it “making love”. It seemed archaic and yet there was something sweet to it, an earnestness.

If Eliot were being honest with himself, which he was loathe to do, he liked it. What might have felt cheesy from someone else felt authentic from Charlton’s lips. As authentic as the noises he made moving under Eliot. Charlton’s hair spilled over the dark red pillowcase, and Eliot fought for breath.

“You’re beautiful,” Eliot murmured, delighting in the way Charlton moaned any time he paid him a compliment. His blush a perfect shade, visible even in the low lighting. 

Eliot rolled his hips and it came over him, shuddering into Charlton who arched his back under him, his legs held so far back that Eliot could kiss him. His lips on Charlton’s, his cock deep inside of him. And Charlton’s hands, one on Eliot’s arm and the other that had found it’s way into Eliot’s hair. His nails dragged over Eliot’s scalp as Eliot gasped and let out a low, long sound. He reached down between them and wrapped his hand around Charlton’s cock. He’d considered using magic but he hadn’t asked, and with how considerate Charlton had been of him, he wasn’t about to overstep.

Not that he minded, because as much as he’d love for this to be amazing for Charlton, he had to admit to himself that he selfishly loved wrapping his hand around Charlton’s dick, thick and heavy in his hand.

Eliot moaned again, spent, but trying to stay inside of Charlton. The fingers on Eliot’s head stilled and then curled as Charlton let out a cry, then another, and another. Eliot’s hand became slick and he used that to his advantage, stroking every last twitch out of Charlton until he fell back on the pillow, spent.

He slid out of Charlton, and missed it immediately. Even though it would make a mess, he lowered himself onto Charlton, leaning in to kiss him. Charlton’s kisses had gone from passionate to satisfied, lazy, and Eliot reveled in it.

Eliot had missed sex, but more than that, Eliot had missed intimacy. He’d missed trust.

He pulled away, his eyes sweeping over Charlton’s face, his smile, his eyes. He noticed one detail that he hadn’t picked up before. “You have long eyelashes.” He cupped Charlton’s face in his hand (the clean one, he wasn’t a complete savage) and brushed his thumb along Charlton’s skin near his eye. “I pay good money for mine to even look that long.”

“They’re longer than they look,” Charlton admitted, blinking a couple of times. “I’m probably not helping.”

Eliot had an idea, and he pulled away from Charlton, rolling off of him and sitting up. “Do you mind if I try something?” he asked.

“Of course not.” Charlton stretched his arms over his head, and Eliot followed the curve of muscle as Charlton tucked his arms behind his head. “But maybe get a towel first.”

“I’d just planned on leaving you like this,” Eliot noted, trailing a hand over Charlton’s stomach.

Charlton gave him A Look. “It’s weird enough having a body. I don’t need mess on top of it.”

“If you want me on top of you, sometimes they’ll be mess on top of everything.” Eliot grinned, getting up to snag a towel off the shelf by the door to the bathroom. Charlton reached for it, but Eliot pushed his hand away. “I’ve got this, you just lay there and look pretty.”

Eliot brushed the towel of Charlton’s skin, finally following the lines of his stomach, his chest. What the hell had happened to get here, anyway? He never would have imagined this, he wouldn’t have thought to look at Charlton like this. The connection they had started with mental, moving onto emotional as Charlton witnessed so many of Eliot’s memories, that Eliot had chosen to show him. Through it all, he’d supported Eliot, in his quirky way.

This felt surprisingly fine. All of it.

A few minutes later, after they’d cleaned up, they sat facing each other. Eliot swung his legs over Charlton’s and carefully tugged the cap off the mascara he’d pulled out of a drawer by the mirror. “I used to do this a lot more. It seems like since… well.” He didn’t want to go too far down the line of thought about the things that had caused him to give up so much. “Hold very still. It’s going to feel weird.”

He brushed the mascara over Charlton’s eyelashes, pulling away when Charlton started to blink. “What are you doing?”

“It’s sort of like painting the tips of your eyelashes. Now stop moving.” Eliot moved over the rest of the second eyelash then inspected how long Charlton’s eyelashes were. His were likely the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen, and he capped the mascara and set it down. He reached for a mirror and held it up.

Charlton’s eyes widened and he took the mirror out of Eliot’s hands, turning his head at different angles. “Oh. I like that. They’re so long!” He blinked, then grinned. “They tickle my cheek.” He held up a hand and felt along the edge, then looked closer in the mirror, tilting his head at weird angles. Eventually he sat the mirror down and looked at Eliot, his face alight. “Is this a normal thing to do in bed on Earth?”

“Not typically, I suppose. But I’m not typical. And neither are you.” He put his hands on the sides of Charlton’s face. He’d never thought of doing this with someone, certainly not Charlton, but Charlton’s open mind was such a refreshing change from… well, everything. Eliot swore he’d never take advantage of that.

“I like not being typical.” His hands ran up and down Eliot’s arms, soothing him.

Eliot didn’t want to break this mood, but he realized he might have to. It was getting late and it had been a long day, especially for Charlton. “You’ve gone from stuck with me in the library, to the infirmary, to wearing mascara in my bedroom.” He tried to figure out how to ask what he wanted to ask. When in doubt, though, just come out and say it. “Stay the night.” He realized how blunt that sounded, and shook his head. “If you want.”

“I want to. I want that more than anything.” Charlton lifted his hands and held them up, showing the tattoos. “In addition to being a messy sleeper, I don’t know how much control over this yet. I don’t want to…” Charlton drew a deep breath and looked Eliot in the eyes. “I have nightmares, too. And if something happens, I can’t risk taking you with me.” His face looked pained, sad. Desperate. There was a longing in his voice that Eliot felt in his gut, that made him want to wrap Charlton up in a blanket and hold him. It was ridiculous, but he hated how alone Charlton looked even though they were right across from each other.

Eliot had an idea. “I think I can help with that.” Eliot got off the bed and went to a box on a shelf. He flipped it open and looked through for what he was looking for. He found it, a silver protection charm on a strap of leather. “If you want to back out, this is the time.” Eliot put it over his head and patted it’s always-warm surface, then turned back to Charlton. “This makes it so I can’t be traveled. It won’t stop you, there’s really no way to do that, but it’ll negate the tattoos’ effect. I don’t think you’ll end up jumping, but you don’t have to worry about me.”

“You’ve tested this out?” Charlton asked as Eliot sat back down across from him.

“I used to piss off the old Penny with it all the time,” he affirmed, holding it up. Charlton reached out and put his hand on the surface.

“I wish there was something like that for me.” He sighed. “If you’re sure that’ll work.”

“I’m sure,” Eliot insisted, starting to climb into bed. “If you won’t stay and keep me warm, at least it will.”

Charlton let out a small laugh, and Eliot realized he didn’t laugh nearly enough. He didn’t reply, but he worked his way under the blankets, facing Eliot. He felt stiff, awkward, trying to figure out where to put his arms. He’d try putting one around Eliot, then end up squirming around trying to figure out where to put his other arm.

“It’s been a while since you did this,” Eliot stated, putting a hand on Charlton’s side.

Charlton’s face echoed frustration. “Nothing is comfortable.” He reached out and brushed his fingers over Eliot’s cheek. “What if I can’t get comfortable?”

“Pretend I’m a chair in the living room,” Eliot noted.

They struggled with it for a few more minutes, Eliot now starting to feel frustrated too, and finally they settled on Eliot curling up against Charlton’s back, an arm around his waist. Charlton stilled almost immediately, resting a hand on Eliot’s and letting his other arm stretch out across the mattress. His warmth seeped into Eliot, along the length of his whole body.

Eliot could get used to this. Whatever this was, he felt like it stilled something in him, a restlessness. He still felt that feeling that he needed to get to Fillory, but layered with it now was a feeling like he didn’t have to do this all alone. Which, he supposed, he never had to.

He told himself he’d tell Charlton later that the charm was a boring standard protection charm, although knowing Charlton he’d figure it out. Eliot felt a little bad for it, but if that was all that was holding Charlton back, he didn’t want it to be that. He trusted Charlton, and he didn’t think that Charlton would accidentally travel them. Was this Eliot’s impulsiveness rearing it’s head? Probably. It maybe wasn’t fair to Charlton, but it was one less thing for Charlton to worry about.

Outside, it started to rain, fat drops of rain that fell and landed hard on the roof. They splashed against the window, and Eliot let himself be lulled into sleep by the rain and Charlton’s steady breathing.


	22. As Restless As We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlton is restless but Eliot knows a spell.

The restlessness felt like it would consume Charlton. He slept initially, but in a matter of an hour he woke up and was profoundly disturbed by his lack of clothing. He hadn’t spent a lot time without clothes in a very long time, and had taken to sleeping in sweatpants and a t-shirt. Blankets rubbed against his skin in overwhelming ways since he’d regained a corporeal form. As much as he loved Eliot curled up against his back, he couldn’t get past the lack of clothing so he’d gotten up and snuck to his room, hoping he wouldn’t run into Todd.

He returned after putting on his clothes and climbed back in bed next to Eliot, who curled back up against him. He didn’t seem to notice that Charlton had been gone, moving in his sleep as he did. This was much nicer than just sitting across from Eliot and talking at night, like they’d done when Charlton had no form. Once, Charlton tried to touch Eliot’s shoulder, and it had been like he applied some kind of pressure, but he couldn’t feel anything under his fingertips. Eliot said he could tell Charlton was there, but it didn’t feel like Charlton was touching him.

That night felt so far away as Eliot let out a soft breath behind him, and Charlton smiled. He drifted off, and woke up later to find himself sprawled partway in Eliot’s arms and partway off the bed. His feet were cold. Eliot moved next to him, already awake.

“You’re going to fall off the bed,” Eliot murmured.

Charlton sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Tell me what you need.” Eliot’s hand rested on his side, his fingers brushing the fabric of Charlton’s shirt.

“I’m fine.” Charlton wasn’t, but he also didn’t know what he needed. He thought about it for a moment. “I think it would help if we switched positions.”

Eliot rolled over, and Charlton cuddled up against his back, putting his arm around Eliot’s waist. At least this way, he’d be less likely to wake Eliot up when he got restless. He moved his hand in small circles on Eliot’s chest and Eliot let out a quite hum of contentment. Charlton had missed this, being this close to someone. It had been so, so long, and here was _Eliot._ Brilliant, beautiful Eliot, who’d asked him to spend the night.

Charlton’s fingers brushed over Eliot’s stomach and Eliot caught his hand, moving it closer to his chest.

“Still feels weird,” Eliot murmured.

Realizing that Eliot spoke of the scars, he reminded himself to be more careful with his hand placement. He kissed Eliot’s shoulder and settled in behind him. Even if he couldn’t sleep, he had Eliot here. But sleep he did.

In Charlton’s dreams, he felt trapped, alone. Inside his own “happy place”, where he’d been safe from the Nameless. He’d forgotten all the things he’d wanted to remember, the names of people he’d loved, the plots of books he’d read. The howling shriek of the things outside, and the feeling of despair.

He’d be here forever, time passing by outside. The one person that could have saved him… Gone. Because of him. Because he’d chosen to leave home. He’d said goodbye to his childhood home, unsure if he’d be coming back.

He’d never made it back, and it had cost him everything he’d ever had in his life. If he’d stayed, if he’d convinced Zur to stay-

 _Zur._ The name he’d fought to remember when he’d talked to Eliot about who he’d lost.

He awoke to Eliot rolled over and loosely holding him, talking gently to him. He barely registered Eliot’s words, but instead focused on the steady sound of his voice. Eliot stroked Charlton’s hair, and Charlton realized how sweat soaked it was. He had the nagging feeling that there was something he was supposed to remember, but he didn’t know what it was. It left a small, aching hole that he couldn’t put his finger on. He vaguely remembered being in the white room again, and knew that whatever it was he’d forgotten when he woke up, it might be for the best.

“I always thought I’d be comforting you,” Charlton managed.

“Oh, you will be eventually. But it’s not a race to who gets to a nightmare first.” Eliot kissed his forehead.

“I’ll be there. Any time.” Charlton tried to relax but found himself still shifting a lot. Now a persistent itch had started somewhere on his back, and he struggled to get to it. Eliot reached over him and scratched at the spot for him through his shirt, and Charlton sagged in relief.

“Can I try something?” Eliot asked, running his fingernails lazily over the fabric that covered Charlton’s back. He didn’t comment on the shirt. “It’s magic but it might help you sleep.”

“I’ll try anything at this point,” Charlton admitted. He felt bad that not only was he not sleeping well, but he was also distracting Eliot from his sleep. Maybe he should have gone back to his own room, but Eliot had seemed so earnest and serious about him staying. And he’d wanted to, he’d hoped that it would help him feel more comfortable, but now he just felt like an inconvenience.

Eliot sat up, crossing his legs in front of him. “Lay however you normally do when you fall asleep.” He started moving his hands in the air, an intricate pattern that glowed faintly blue in the near-darkness of the room.

Charlton settled onto his back, with his hands at his sides. He didn’t think it was a normal posture to fall asleep in, but it worked, even if he never stayed asleep in that position. It put the most even levels of pressure on him.

“I used to use this spell when Teddy had trouble sleeping,” Eliot explained, his voice soft. A sadness crept in.

“Teddy was your son with Quentin, right?” Charlton watched the soft blue energy swirling around Eliot’s hands as he worked on the spell. Eliot didn’t speak of this much.

“Yes. Sometimes he had trouble sleeping. He probably got it from both of us. Arielle was really the only solid sleeper out of us. Teddy’s mom,” he added. “I figured out that this spell worked to help him. It’s going to feel a little strange at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

Charlton waited for the moment when the spell took effect. He could now see Eliot’s hands moving, lit by the light, and he flattened them above Charlton. Tendrils of blue extended from his fingers to settle onto the blanket, weaving into the material.

The blanket became heavy, so heavy, and for a moment Charlton felt alarmed and perhaps a little trapped. But after a moment, it settled over him, as if it knew the exact amount of pressure required to make him comfortable. It sunk into him, pushing him down into the mattress but not in an unpleasant way. It felt like the biggest full body hug he could imagine, and he closed his eyes, feeling it. Something settled in him, that restless feeling that had plagued him since he’d regained a physical form. He drew in a deep breath and found that it didn’t impact his breathing at all, just made him feel relaxed. He lifted up one leg to see if he could move, and he found that he could, but when he set his leg down again, the blanked sunk back down over it, around it.

“It’s basically a smart weighted blanket,” Eliot explained. “Weighted blankets can help some people sleep, especially if they’re anxious.”

“I’m not anxious,” Charlton muttered, closing his eyes.

Eliot chuckled, not unkindly. “You’re full of anxious, Charlton. How does it feel?”

Charlton wasn’t sure how to answer that. The blanket made him feel safe, relaxed. Tension eased out of him, and he didn’t feel too warm, or too cold. “It’s wonderful. Although you might be a little disappointed at my lack of cuddling.”

“I can make that work.” Eliot slid under the blankets and laid on his side, putting an arm over Charlton’s stomach.

The blanket felt like it adjusted to the new level of pressure, evening it all out so that the pressure of Eliot’s arm felt just like the rest of the blanket, but warmer.

It seemed like the most strange thing in the world to help, but when Charlton fell asleep again, he didn’t remember any more dreams, and he didn’t remember getting up anymore in the middle of the night.


	23. Got The Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot and Charlton both need some time to remember who they are. InstaPenny helps out. Hope contributes 1 keysmash.

When Eliot awoke the next morning, Charlton was gone. For a moment, Eliot panicked, worrying that perhaps he might have managed to travel somehow in his sleep. On the tail end of that thought came the next one; it was more likely that Charlton got up to do something else. Light streamed through the window, and so he reasoned that Charlton had simply gotten up.

Eliot still remained in the same position he was in when he’d fallen asleep, which meant Charlton got out from under his arm. If he’d traveled, he would have taken Eliot with him. Which he had not.

He heard footsteps on the stairs, and then the door to the bedroom opened and Charlton entered, holding two steaming mugs in his hands. “I didn’t do anything for breakfast,” he admitted, “but I thought you might like some coffee.”

“You sure slipped away fast,” Eliot commented. “Did you sleep okay after the spell?”

Charlton nodded. “I didn’t want you to see how bad my hair is in the morning.” He set the coffee down on the nightstand. “It might be the best I’ve slept since being… well. Whatever it is I am.”

“So you’re saying you haven’t slept that well in over a thousand years?” Eliot teased, reaching out and ruffling Charlton’s hair. The strands were soft between his fingers. “I can’t say anyone’s got to say that after sleeping in my bed.”

“Not everyone is me.” Charlton sat down on the bed next to him.

Eliot picked up the coffee and sipped at it. “Well, even though you kept me up half the night, you’re welcome to stay here any time. Now that I know the trick.” He yawned. “Not sure if I’ve had enough sleep to stare at spells, though.”

Almost every weekend since Margo, Josh, Fen, and Alice had left for Fillory, he’d spent researching, reading spells. He knew that’s what he should be doing, he knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until he found Fillory.

Charlton flinched. “Sorry.” He paused, picking at the blanket. He looked up and away, then back to Eliot. “It’s okay to take a day off from that. I’m not saying that you have to, but you work all week, and I think you’re right that we’re going to have to go to the Library to get any farther.” He blinked. “I do get to come with you, right?”

“That’s that I negotiated with Henry,” Eliot affirmed. He let Charlton’s words sink in, absorbing them. “I’m not sure I know how to do anything but keep looking, Charlton.” He sighed. He knew Charlton meant well. “I can rest when it’s figured out.”

“Eliot.” Charlton tucked his hands between his knees. “You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders.”

“Who says _that_?” Eliot asked, snorting.

“Fine, then. If you’re going to work on it, what are you going to do?”

Eliot explained how he’d contact Julia and Penny and see if they’d found anything else with the leads he’d given them, then he’d go through the notes again. “And if we’re lucky, maybe a pizza will show up,” he finished.

Charlton studied his face. “Eliot, finding Fillory isn’t going to do you any good if you aren’t taking any time for you. If you want to piss off Margo, this sounds like an exceptional strategy.”

He’d need more coffee at this rate. “You don’t know what this is like. Don’t tell me what to do.” He knew as soon as he said it that it wasn’t fair.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Charlton protested, shaking his head. “I’ll support you, whatever you need.” He sighed. “I don’t know if it’ll help you, but I made a grocery order for pickup at the store. I used the list you’d been keeping by the fridge.”

“Why?” Eliot said, slowly. He didn’t like where this was going. He’d been sleeping with Charlton two days. He wasn’t sure what to make of this.

Charlton didn’t speak at first, looking down at his hands in his lap. “You don’t have a lot of things you do for fun. You seem to like cooking. I don’t want you to cook for me or anything, I just thought maybe it might help you feel more like you. And I know I’ve had such a hard time feeling like myself… I don’t want you to go through that, too.”

Eliot felt the breath leave him in a rush. “Oh.” He swallowed, feeling something sweep over him. He remembered the list he’d made, almost more of a wishlist of groceries than a real shopping list. Things to make his favorite dishes, things he hadn’t made in years. Things he missed. And he’d been keeping that list long enough, and never getting around to it, that Charlton would know it’s significance. He’d been talking about cooking since he got out of the hospital, but he’d only made the simple things with simple ingredients.

Part of Eliot wanted to be mad at Charlton, for trying to tell him what he should be doing with his time. On the heels of that feeling came another one, like a weight being lifted from him.

Charlton also must have realized by now that some of those ingredients weren’t cheap. “I can’t let you pay that much for food, Charlton.”

“Eliot.” Charlton shifted on the bed and faced Eliot. “I know you love to distract, but you…” He reached out and put a hand on Eliot’s bare chest. “There’s a lot inside of you and you hold it all back. It’s a little thing, but you should do something for you. Something that makes you feel like yourself. I think it would be good for you.”

“You mean I should do something more than you, look for Fillory, or work?” Eliot looked down at the tattoos on Charlton’s hand, focusing on the warmth. “I don’t know what feeling like myself is supposed to be.” He put a hand over Charlton’s.

“That’s what scares me. I don’t know if I do, either. And maybe that’s not really the best place for either us to be if we want to solve any problems.”

It was astute, and it made Eliot realize that he wasn’t as aware of what Charlton was going through as Charlton was of Eliot’s own struggles. “What about you, then?”

Charlton pressed his lips together. “I’d thought about reading, but all I’ve really done is read. And I like it, but after I remembered the bridge yesterday…” He pulled his hand back and stretched his fingers out in front of him. “I’m wondering if perhaps drawing might help my own remembrances.”

“That’s a… really good idea, actually.” Eliot searched his face. “Can I help? Do you need paper or pencils?” Eliot had already started to form an idea. He’d had a hard time trying to pin down what Charlton would enjoy doing, and he wanted to do something for Charlton. Especially after the groceries, a gesture that showed a lot of consideration for Eliot. He could find a good sketchbook and get some pencils. A gift. It had been over a thousand years since Charlton was given anything that was truly his.

“If there’s something around that I could use.” Charlton looked thoughtful. “It’s been so hard to remember so many things, and the bridge was so clear when I started to put it on paper. There’s things in my head that are perfectly clear, but there’s other times that I feel like Jane Doe after the ZIP.”

Eliot blinked. “If you’ve finished Blindspot don’t tell me because I haven’t.”

Charlton winced. “Oh. Well then I won’t.”

“Ok, Jane Doe, let’s find you some paper.” Eliot stood up and stretched, watching Charlton look away from Eliot’s lack of clothing. “You’re not getting shy on me now, are you?”

“I’m trying to be polite,” he muttered. “You’re right _there_.”

“Mmmm you didn’t complain last night.” Eliot leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Let me get dressed and then we’ll go get the groceries.” Maybe he could even quietly get Charlton a sketchbook, it wouldn’t be anything fancy but it would be a start.

“We don’t have to get them. I scheduled them for delivery,” Charlton pronounced proudly.

“And how does anyone get through the wards here to deliver groceries?” Eliot asked. Either Charlton hadn’t thought this out, or he had another plan. “People can’t just walk in here to bring a lot of groceries.”

“I got Penny to do it.” Charlton pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. “He says that he’s not the Penny Instacart but he accepts tips. I didn’t know what that meant, so I offered him babysitting services.”

“Oh you did, did you?” Eliot hadn’t gotten the hang of getting Penny to do anything he didn’t want to, but he supposed that babysitting was a compelling trade. He’d have to resort to bribes. “When will he be here?”

“Probably in the next hour. Maybe sooner. He and I will go get the groceries to make it easier.” Charlton looked up at Eliot, and lifted a hand and placed it on Eliot’s hip. “I’ll be downstairs. Don’t let your coffee get cold.” He trailed his fingers over Eliot’s skin as he stood, then he left, closing the door behind him.

As soon as he left, Eliot sat back down and grabbed his phone, sending a text to Penny. _I can’t offer you babysitting but I need a favor. You can’t tell Charlton._

A moment later a message came back. _I already told Charlton I’m not Instacart and I’m not Amazon Prime, dude._

Eliot chuckled. _It’s not much. I need you to pick something up from the art supply store by the grocery store. I’ll have it already paid for. It’s just something for Charlton._ The least he could do for Charlton being a friend, and for the rest of this. Whatever this was going be.

_You’re going soft. Julia’s going to love hearing this._

_Is that a yes or no?_ Eliot asked, typing with one hand as he picked up his coffee in his other hand and sipped at it.

 _Y. Asdlhalkdjsfads._ There was a moment of nothing than another message appeared. _Baby stole the phone. See you later._

 _Thx._ He’d figured it was Hope, he’d never seen Penny execute anything resembling an effective key smash. Eliot opened up the page for the shop, and scrolled through, looking for a sketchbook and set of pencils. He’d feel better if Charlton had something better to draw on than printer paper, and if it would help him figure out his memories, Eliot was all for helping out in whatever way he could.

He paid for the order and put in the notes that it would be picked up by InstaPenny, then he headed to the bathroom to take a shower.


	24. Never Too Far Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot makes a bag snake. InstaPenny demands cookies. Charlton knows that eventually you can find your keys if you keep looking.

Charlton agreed to go with Penny to pick up the groceries, since that would make it easier to carry them back. Otherwise, as Penny had pointed out, he’d be likely making two trips and just leaving half of the groceries back behind the dumpster while he dropped off the rest. Charlton hadn’t understood the problem, and Penny had just told him that he’s new to Earth still and didn’t know what happens behind dumpsters.

Penny appeared while Charlton waited, sipping at a cup of tea with honey. Penny had Hope in her bright green and blue sling. “Ready?” He reached into a bag attached to the sling and pulled out a package.

He set it on the table, and Charlton looked with curiosity. “What’s that?”

“Something for Eliot.”

Charlton read the note on the anonymous brown paper package. _You’re an asshole. -P_

“What did he do?” Charlton asked, looking back to Penny.

“He was an asshole.”

Charlton nodded and reached out to take Hope’s hand. Her tiny fingers wrapped around his finger, and she laughed, tugging at his hand. “Greetings, Lady Hope,” he proclaimed, smiling down at her.

Her face pulled into a delighted expression and then they were in a back alley near the store. He reeled a little at the sudden change. “Does it always feel like that?”

“No. Otherwise, we’d all have stopped doing it a lot time ago. It gets easier.” Penny looked around to be sure that no one saw them. “Let’s get the shit and get back to the house.”

Charlton nodded and they headed into the store. The message he’d gotten had said that it would be waiting in an area by the entrance, and Charlton searched through for the right one. His heart sank when he saw the cart; it was a lot of food, more than he’d thought he’d be buying. Then again, that would explain how it was so expensive. Thank the gods for his side job.

They gathered the bags up, looping them over their arms. Charlton tried to take more than Penny since Penny also had to carry Hope, and they worked their way back around to the alley where the dumpster was. Penny looked around again to see that no one was looking, and then nodded to Charlton. The bags were so heavy that he couldn’t lift his hand to touch Hope’s, so he instead lowered his head and let her put her hand on his chin.

Then they were back in the Physical Kids’ Cottage, and Charlton lowered his bags to the ground, grateful. “Why is it all so heavy?”

“Because you shop like someone that doesn’t even know what a store is,” Penny pointed out.

“Charlton, what did you do?” Eliot asked, coming out of the kitchen. His eyes grew wide when he saw all the groceries in the dining room. Some of them were on the table where Penny had put them, and Charlton disentangled himself from the ones looped around his wrists and arms.

“This is a lot of groceries, how much did you spend?” Eliot’s eyes shifted from the groceries to Charlton.

Charlton shook his head. “I got a lot of them on sale, it’s fine.” And, he had, although really he just didn’t want Eliot to ask any more questions about it. Eliot would just fret, but from Charlton’s point of view, he had very little to spend the money he had on.

“I can make cookies too by the look of it.” Eliot looked up at Penny. “Will accept cookies in return for favors?”

“Chocolate chip only, with or without nuts.” Penny stepped back and grinned at Charlton. “I’ll let you know about the babysitting. Once classes start up again, being able to have Hope nearby but not always in the classroom will help. Thanks for the offer, man.”

“I’m happy to spend more time with her.” Charlton reached down and held his hand near Hope, waiting for her to acknowledge that he wanted to say goodbye.

The strange thing about Hope is that she was in a way a bit similar to eating pizza and hearing the people of Fillory. He didn’t always catch thoughts from other adults, although that could be because everyone around him lately generally carried good wards. He’d caught the occasional stray thought from others while riding the bus to and from the penthouse over the course of the week, but they felt like brief, strong things. Nothing consistent.

Hope, however, was a different matter. While she had wards put in place by her parents, she also actively reached out to him. Sometimes her thoughts were less words and more general concepts, but he’d spent enough time with babies that being able to hear one wasn’t as jarring as he thought it would be. She reached for him and gave her consent, and he put his finger in her hand. “Thanks for helping, Hope. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

She seemed pleased, both in thoughts and in gestures, her hand tugging at his finger like she was trying to shake his hand. He knew she hadn’t figured that out yet, that this was simply her enthusiasm, but it was adorable none the less.

He pulled his hand back and stepped back. “Thanks Penny.”

“No problem.” Penny’s gaze slid over to Eliot. “InstaPenny? Really? That’s the best you could come up with?”

Eliot snorted. “Next time you’re ‘PennyCart’.”

“You’d better have some dinner for me next time if we’re going down _that_ road.” Penny disappeared, leaving Eliot and Charlton standing in the dining room.

Eliot pulled out his phone and tapped something out, then shoved it back in his pocket. “I sent Penny a proper thank you,” he added. “Least I could do.”

Charlton got the distinct impression he’d missed something, but he didn’t worry about it for long. Instead, he started picking up the grocery bags. He’d managed to get three over his arms before Eliot moved his hands in the air, lifting all of the groceries at once and floating them into the kitchen. The mass of bags adjusted as it moved through the doorway, shifting into snake of grocery bags. They rattled and hissed as they moved, lending more to the snake feel of them all.

“You’d better not break the eggs. Show off,” Charlton muttered, following along after Eliot with his paltry three bags of groceries.

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” Eliot returned over his shoulder.

Charlton had to admit, as he followed Eliot into the kitchen, that Eliot definitelty “got it.”

Eliot set the groceries down in the kitchen, floating some of the bags to the counter and others to the floor. After they’d all settled, Charlton edged around the mass of bags on the floor, putting his bags on the counter near the fridge. He tore the carefully written list in Eliot’s neat handwriting off of the pad of paper and handed it to him. “Everything on here is in there. If I couldn’t find it, I tried to find a substitution of it. The best I could, anyway.”

Taking the list from his hands, Eliot looked over it. His eyes darted down the list then up to Charlton. He blinked, and Charlton recognized it as a moment of Eliot feeling emotional. He set the list down on the counter and wrapped his arms around Charlton, a warm, deep hug. Charlton hugged him back, smiling. He hadn’t done this for the hugs, but he didn’t mind. Not at all.

Eliot turned his head and kissed Charlton’s cheek. “I don’t even know what to do anymore when I’m not working or trying to find a way to Fillory. I’ve… lost a lot of myself.”

Charlton held him tighter, feeling the warmth of Eliot, the way he drew in breath. “Like a misplaced set of keys, it’s not gone, you just have to know where to look.”

Chuckling, Eliot pulled back and regarded Charlton. “I’m pretty sure some of these keys aren’t coming back, Charlton.”

“Not if you stop looking for them.” He knew that Eliot had it in him to find himself again. Not just the Eliot he’d thought he’d been, but all of Eliot. He’d already come this far, and he needed something to remind him that he was more than the one left behind, the one who was broken. “You’re never too far gone, Eliot.”

“Now you sound like Ellie,” Eliot muttered, shaking his head. “Okay enough of this warm fuzzy shit, there’s food to be cooked.”

Charlton looked around at the massive pile of groceries, and he started picking up bags and putting items in the fridge or on the counter, depending. He didn’t want to put it all away and have Eliot not be able to find what he was looking for, or need to dig it back out in a half hour. That seemed horribly inefficient.

He opened the fridge and looked at Todd’s bottomless case of Coca-Cola in the fridge. After putting the eggs and the cheese into the fridge, he pulled out a can and cracked it open, listening to the hiss of the can.

“That still hasn’t gotten old, has it?” Eliot asked, glancing over at him.

“Is it supposed to?” Charlton took a sip of the sugary liquid. He’d started limiting himself to a couple a week, mostly because even though the box was bottomless, Todd would eventually notice the cans in the recycle bin. On the flip side, their arrangement was that Charlton would take Todd’s turn cleaning the kitchen, and Charlton had to admit he did do most of the cleaning lately since he didn’t have much else to keep him occupied. He’d just stopped telling Todd about taking a Coke, and had instead taken Eliot’s suggestion of shaking a can up and putting it back once in a while. So far Todd had fallen for that exactly once before he started taking the cans from the back. Eliot had encouraged him to do the same for those cans, but if Charlton was being honest, he’d watched Todd clean up the remains of that soda. No one deserved to clean up a brown sticky mess from the walls.

Eliot smiled, pulling out the items from a bag in front of him. “Don’t ever change, Charlton.”

“I can’t promise that, but I’m pretty sure I largely stay me. At least, I did for this long.” He set the Coke down and worked with Eliot to unload the groceries. After they were done, he leaned against the counter and regarded Eliot. “Do you need any help?”

Eliot waved his hand in the air. “No offence, but you’d probably be in the way. Besides, I’ve got something better for you to do.” He gestured at Eliot to follow him from the room and back into the living room.

Eliot reached up on a shelf and pulled down the same brown paper wrapped package that Penny had left on the table earlier. “Sorry about the text on it.” Eliot winced, holding it out to him.

“I saw it earlier.” He took it from Eliot, and felt something tight in his chest. He shook the package and something in it rattled slightly. “This is for me?”

Eliot nodded. “Open it.”

“Eliot.” Charlton held the package against his chest. He wasn’t sure if Eliot truly understood what this meant. “No one’s given me a present in… a very long time. Unless you count the amulet, but that wasn’t even really a present for me, it was a present for you, and-“

“Charlton.” Eliot leaned against the bookshelf. “I know. I know it’s your first present in forever. So hurry up and open it.”

Charlton nodded and sat down on the couch, putting the package on his lap. He ran his hands over the brown paper, knowing that it wasn’t truly wrapping but he loved the suspense anyway. Even as he suspected what the package contained already. He didn’t care that it had a rude message from Penny; it just reminded Charlton that these were real people that had become his friends.

And in some cases, a bit more than friends. He carefully opened the paper wrapping, removing the contents and setting the wrapper aside. A sketchbook and a metal tin of pencils now sat in his lap, and he stared down at it. It had been so long since he’d drawn anything, but he didn’t feel nervous. He felt excited, wondering what he’d be able to draw. He opened it to the first page and ran his fingers over the slightly textured paper, his eyes growing wider as he looked up at Eliot.

“I thought it would be better than shit pencils and printer paper,” he explained. “I thought maybe you needed something to keep you busy, too.”

Charlton opened up the case of pencils and rolled them around with his finger. He’d never seen anything like this, carefully labeled and absolutely perfect. Pencils in Fillory tended to be rough, unless they were made with magic, which made them much more expensive. Pens were more common, but had no room for mistakes. A could of gray objects were nestled in the top part of the case, and he pressed his finger into one of them. It yielded under his hand.

He had no idea what he should be doing with this many pencils or this squishy gray stuff, but he was excited to find out.

“That’s an eraser.” Eliot sat down next to him. “Will this work?”

Charlton turned his gaze to Eliot’s face and smiled, his fingers still running over the smooth surface of the pencils. “Eliot, you didn’t have to. This is too much.”

“Says the man who probably emptied his entire savings account to buy groceries.” Eliot leaned back on the couch, looking far too comfortable. “This isn’t Fillory, pencils don’t cost you entire body parts.”

Charlton didn’t really know what to say to that, so he just smiled. “Thank you, El.” The nickname slipped out without him meaning for it to.

Eliot’s face softened. “You’re welcome. Now, go draw something.”

Charlton leaned over and kissed Eliot on the lips. A quick kiss, but he hoped a good thank you none the less. Eliot grinned at him, then got up to head back to the kitchen. Charlton followed and took a place at the table, figuring that would make the most sense for now. He pulled out the pencil in the middle and started drawing a random cup hanging off the ceiling. It felt like a strange place to start, but everywhere was a strange place to start these days, he supposed.

He let himself get lost in the feel of the pencils on the paper, the soft scratching of his drawing overlaid by the sounds of Eliot chopping something in the kitchen. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Sunday.


	25. Learn To Be Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot is still, for once. Charlton opens up a little. Todd somehow cleans the kitchen.
> 
> The calm before the week, before Eliot has to face down hard memories.

Eliot spent the day cooking, and Charlton spent the day drawing. Eliot had forgotten how good it felt to do something for himself, something that he genuinely enjoyed doing. It had been so long since he’d had that, since he’d had much of anything. Life had been running from one crisis to the next, and without a crisis, knowing how to fill his time, to exist on his own terms, had been a struggle.

It wasn’t saving the world, and it wasn’t looking for Fillory, but it made him feel like Eliot Waugh. He’d take that. And it let him use his hands, something he hadn’t gotten to do much of since they’d been injured. He winced, hearing the cracking of his hands all over again. They’d healed cleanly, no pain, but sometimes he’d remember the sound, and the pain.

The amount of groceries that Charlton had gotten seemed like too much, but Eliot supposed he could perhaps stock up the freezer. Or feed friends. It had been a long time since he’d done that. With Josh around, Eliot had found himself cooking far less. And while Josh beat him on baked goods, Eliot had a lot of tricks he’d learned, and dishes he could make that Josh couldn’t even touch. They’d make a good team when they were on the same world again. Margo would be thrilled. For that matter, so would Charlton.

The thought of Josh being in Fillory and cooking right now somewhat reassured him. Josh would make sure his Bambi was taken care of, was loved, and cherished. He’d owe Josh a lot of lasagna, or perhaps a good German spaetzle.

The day went by faster than a day had in a long time, interspersed with moments of checking on Charlton. Sometimes Eliot would glance over his shoulder and see Charlton’s head bowed in intense concentration, his hands picking up different pencils as he moved across a page. The first page that Eliot caught a glimpse of seemed to be mostly Charlton trying out the pencils. Occasionally Charlton would pull up an instructional video on his phone, then go back to the sketchbook. Eliot smiled, watching him. A part of him almost felt like he’d turn around and Charlton would disappear, given all the times it had happened before, and yet there was Charlton every time. His graceful fingers wrapped around the pencil as he moved it over the paper.

He looked more relaxed, more settled. Perhaps they’d both needed something to do that wasn’t solving problems. Something to do because they wanted to (besides each other he supposed), not because they had an overwhelming drive to fix something. After the previous day and all of it’s stress and revelations, the feeling was surprisingly welcome.

Charlton tended to hide the sketchbook when Eliot came into the room, which Eliot understood as he had seen plenty of people do the same over the years. He supposed that if he hadn’t used his hands to draw in this long, he’d probably also be shy about it, although if Charlton’s skill at copying a spell was any indication, it wouldn’t take him long. A couple of times, Charlton closed the sketchbook and poked in his head into the kitchen to see if Eliot needed help.

A few of the times that they drifted through the other’s space, they’d kiss, or once Charlton came through the kitchen for a snack and had asked permission to grab Eliot’s ass. Eliot appreciated consent, but he told Charlton that from here on out, he could assume that was fine. There came a point after you’d sucked someone’s dick that double checking that an ass grab was okay seemed gratuitous.

Charlton gave him space, though, and understood boundaries. He’d told Eliot that he didn’t like to assume, and Eliot felt a warm gratefulness that spread through his whole body at that. It would have been so easy to Charlton to assume, for him to just take all of these things he’d learned about Eliot and do what he thought Eliot would want. And yet, he didn’t.

Maybe this was exactly what he needed, after all. Encouragement, support, someone who got him but who didn’t have to always hold it over him that he got him. Not that Charlton was shy about how much he knew about Eliot, but he also seemed aware that what he knew about Eliot wasn’t everything that Eliot was.

The day shifted into night, and Eliot hardly noticed the passage of time. It felt good for a day to pass quickly instead of with miserable slowness. Todd appeared at some point, making idle conversation while he eyed the food that Eliot prepared.

“You can just ask for dinner,” Eliot pronounced as he carefully stirred a cream sauce to ladle over the walnut crusted chicken that he’d just pulled out of the oven. “There’s plenty of food.”

“I’ll eat, but I’m mostly here to say that it’s nice to see you doing something that’s not moping around.”

“I don’t mope.” Eliot held himself up straighter. “You make it sound so mundane.”

“Well, whatever it is, you not doing it seems good for you.” Todd reached over and moved like he was about to put his finger into the cream sauce.

Eliot batted him away. “Don’t be such a fucking savage.”

Todd left the kitchen, laughing, and Eliot couldn’t help himself. He laughed a little bit, too. It felt good.

Dinner turned out excellent, if Eliot did say so himself. And he did say so, but he had the additional data points of Charlton and Todd’s reactions to his cooking to back it up. Dinner was more lively than usual, and the Cottage felt the most lived in that it had in many months. Eliot found himself relaxing as he ate, sipping at a martini he’d made. The only one he planned on having, so he wanted it to count. In a way, alcohol tasted better when he didn’t have a bottomless supply of it. If he was going to only have a single drink, he might as well finish off the best vodka in the place. Alcohol hadn’t tasted the same since the abuse his body had been through, but thankfully, he hadn’t been ruined for the best cocktails.

Todd had already heard the rumor of Charlton’s collapse, which made Eliot nervous. It would be a matter of time before they’d have trouble hiding Charlton’s origins, but that was always going to be a problem that they’d have to address at some point or another. It looked like it just might come sooner rather than later, and Eliot had hoped perhaps they’d make it to Fillory first. If nothing else, due to the way time moved differently in Fillory, maybe Charlton could learn more magic in Fillory, and come back to Earth needing less magical training than anticipated. The catch would be that Penny would be the only one that would be able to teach Charlton how to travel, and he didn’t know how willing Penny would be to stay in Fillory for long. It all depended on how okay he’d be with his baby being slightly high on opium all the time, assuming that was still a thing.

Todd and Charlton worked together to clean the kitchen afterwards, and Eliot felt like he got the better end of that deal. He watched them through the doorway, seeing the shake in Charlton’s hands. It had been present briefly when he’d first put on the amulet, and it seemed to come and go. He’d seemed fine when he was drawing. He was about to get up and suggest he take Charlton’s place, but at that moment, a plate started to slip from his hands.

Eliot raised his hands and caught it in the air before it fell, and Todd snatched it out of the air. “Thanks for the save!” he called, setting it down. “I’ll finish up. Least I can do for dinner.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Eliot asked, getting to his feet.

“I’m okay,” Charlton offered.

“I meant Todd, he never offers to clean the kitchen. We’ll talk about you in a minute.” He wrapped his hand around Charlton’s upper arm and guided him back to a chair. Charlton seemed fine, but he looked pale, a bit tired. Todd brought a glass of water and set it in front of Charlton.

Charlton gulped it down and leaned back. “I’m fine. Or, I’ll be fine.”

“Let’s get you over to the couch,” Eliot suggested, holding out a hand for Charlton to take and leading him to the couch.

He sat down, with Eliot sitting down on the other end of the couch. “Lay down,” he suggested, patting his lap. Charlton laid down on his back, setting his head in Eliot’s lap and looking up at him.

“This is nice,” Charlton murmured, folding his hands over his stomach. “I could certainly lay here all on my own, but this is much better.”

“That’s the point.” Eliot rested a hand on Charlton’s hands, feeling the cold that had sunk in. He wondered if this was just exhaustion, or an ongoing connection with Fillory. He had taken off the jacket with the scrying glass so he couldn’t check, but he’d keep an eye on it. For now, it felt nice to analyze a bit less and feel a fair bit more. He placed his other hand on Charlton’s head, running his fingers through his hair. It felt good to be there for someone, for someone to trust him. For life to have become enough of an improvement that he could think clearly, breathe deeply.

All of this was happening so fast, but it felt like it settled a restlessness in Eliot’s soul. He’d been so focused on just getting from point A to point B that he’d forgotten how to be still. If he’d ever known how to be that.

“I hate to interrupt your thoughts, but you’re thinking almost loudly enough for me to hear,” Charlton said, turning his head against Eliot’s stomach.

“I thought you’d have me figured all out by now,” Eliot teased.

Charlton smiled. “You’re a hard nut to bust.”

Eliot burst out laughing. “I think you meant tough nut to crack.”

“Yes. That. What’s so funny about it?”

He made it too easy sometimes. “Oh, that you can look up yourself.”

“Later, then.” Charlton closed his eyes, a smile on his face.

Eliot decided to speak his thoughts rather than hold them in. A little at a time. “It’s nice. Not having to save anything or anyone right this moment. Yesterday wasn’t exactly the best time but you seem to be fine, aside from your hands.” He focused on his hand resting on top of Charlton’s. “Everything keeps working out.”

“You’re worried when it will stop working out.” It wasn’t a question, just a simple statement, and Eliot suppressed a flinch.

This is where he supposed he had to be honest. “The other shoe always drops, or flies through the air and hits me in the face.” His fingers moved through Charlton’s hair, brushing along the soft skin at his temple, along his cheek and the slight stubble. That hadn’t been there yesterday, and Eliot was a little relieved for that. It meant Charlton at least not stuck in a singular place in time captured at the moment he’d been taken over by the Monster, or God forbid, the moment that Eliot had shot his physical form.

“It can happen. But it’s not happening now, so maybe you should just enjoy it. That’s what I’m going to do. And I do usually know what I’m talking about.”

Eliot’s hands drifted over Charlton’s neck. “You’re not worried about what happened yesterday?”

“Oh, I’m terrified.” Charlton let out a breath. “I just got myself back. I don’t like the uncertainty. It makes me anxious. Downside to having a body again is that sinking feeling in my stomach when something feels wrong. There are some days that I’ve been terrified. A lot of them, really. But being _me_ helps.” He held up a hand. “I feel like I’ve regained some level of control, if not over my whole situation, at least over me and who I am.”

Perhaps it wasn’t just Eliot that needed to work on opening up. Charlton placed his hand over Eliot’s, and they sat on the couch with the soft clink of dishes in the kitchen in the background. It felt good to be like this, to be there for someone, to just be. And it wasn’t just being there or having someone there, it was that it was someone who made him smile, too.

He brushed Charlton’s hair out of his face, his fingers tracing his forehead. A tightness formed in his chest. _Don’t get too attached. I can’t get too attached. Everyone good will always give up on me._

As soon as he thought it, it already felt wrong. Quentin had never given up on him, it had been him that hadn’t given Quentin the chance. Margo certainly hadn’t ever given up on him. In fact, none of them had, even when he’d had it coming. Even when he’d fucked up so thoroughly that it should have been unforgivable. Either he had the best luck in the world… Or maybe he was a better person that he wanted to give himself credit.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad to get attached. The tightness in his chest wasn’t unpleasant, just different. His thumb brushed over Charlton’s forehead, over his eyebrows, back to his temple. Touch, sex, those things he’d missed. Casual, honest conversations were less familiar to him, but with Charlton it felt more natural. Charlton didn’t fuck with him, he just said things how they were.

He hoped Charlton would stay, and give him a chance to work out what this meant and what it would be. He hoped Charlton had the tolerance for that. Then again, Charlton had waited a thousand years in the hell that Eliot had lasted a mere months in.

“I hope you can be as stubborn with me as you were with your previous situation” Eliot murmured.

Charlton’s chuckle was soft and warmed Eliot to his core. “I can be very stubborn.” He reached up and touched Eliot’s cheek. His touch felt like a tickle along his skin, and Eliot leaned into it. “I think the word you meant was patient.”

“Maybe I meant frustrating,” Eliot teased.

“Oh, I can certainly be that.” Charlton closed his eyes and while he didn’t look like he’d fallen asleep, Eliot felt him relax fully, perhaps for the first time.

Eliot drew a deep breath and let it out. “Thank you for the groceries. I like remembering that magic isn’t the only thing I’m good at.” _That I can do things that don’t require me to hurt._

“You’re welcome.” Charlton didn’t open his eyes. “I’ll show you the sketches I’ve been doing. I’m not trying to hide them, it’s just that there’s some explaining that I might have to do. Today doesn’t feel like the right day.”

A shake had snuck into Charlton’s voice, and Eliot raked his fingernails over Charlton’s scalp. “Well, whenever you’re ready for me to see your fledging artwork, I’m here.”

“I know.” Charlton turned onto his side facing Eliot, placing a hand on Eliot’s arm.

Neither of them spoke again until it was time for dessert. Eliot had to admit, it felt good to be with someone that made him feel comfortable, who he enjoyed being around, who he cared about. Someone who called him out when he had it coming, but also listened and understood.

He wasn’t ready to answer Charlton’s question, if he’d be able to be romantically inclined towards him. Eliot wasn’t sure what he was ready for.

But he hoped it would be this.


	26. Where You Used To Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot's hair is hard to draw. Todd snoops. Charlton recovers some memories.

Charlton knew that Eliot wasn’t looking forward to the week coming up. It would feel miserably long, knowing what was at the end of the week.

The rest of Sunday passed quickly, with Charlton getting a second wind in the evening. He still hadn’t shown Eliot the sketchbook, even though he wanted to. He just wasn’t sure if he wanted to try to explain who some of these people were, when he was just starting to remember that himself. The part of him that wanted to hold up the sketchbook and show Eliot everything warred with the part of him that had been used to keeping everything to himself. He knew he couldn’t ask Eliot to open if he couldn’t do the same. He knew how hard this struggle was.

Eliot had invited him to take a shower with him, and Charlton had hesitated. Mostly because he had so many worries about, what if the amulet fell off in the shower? What if he suddenly changed form? The last thing he wanted was for Eliot to see him as anyone but the Charlton he knew.

He’d shared those concerns with Eliot, who had kissed his forehead. “Then we’ll deal with it. You’re Charlton regardless of all of that, and so nothing changes.”

Charlton’s heart thudded in his chest when he nodded, letting Eliot lead him to the shower. He moved carefully around the scars as he ran a washcloth over Eliot’s skin.

“You can touch them,” Eliot murmured. “They feel strange. They’re numb in places. But I trust you with this.”

Charlton explored with his fingers, brushing over the different texture of Eliot’s skin where the scars were.

“I wasn’t sure I’d be okay with you touching them,” Eliot admitted. “They’re so personal. They hurt on the inside, even if my body is healed. But…” He sighed, the water cascading down his body. “You’ve seen worse inside of me.”

The vulnerability in Eliot’s voice cut through Charlton’s thoughts, his own concerns, and focused his attention on Eliot. The shower turned from exploration to… considerably more than that. Charlton had never showered with anyone before. Bathed, yes. But showers were a new concept specific to Earth. It lacked the laziness of being in a bathtub, but at the same time, it left room to pay attention to each other. Eliot worked shampoo through Charlton’s hair, and Charlton put his hands on Eliot’s hips, holding himself against him, their mutual arousal clear but also very casual, comfortable. A promise of what was to come, but with the focus on each other, on affection. Their bodies slid against each other, slick with soap.

Charlton washed Eliot’s hair, glad that he was the right height to do so. Eliot closed his eyes, tipping his head back, and Charlton reveled in the feel of his hair in his fingers.

They made love that night, even though Charlton still had a slight headache. Something about it being Eliot helped, though.

The next day and through the week, he did what he could to help, from getting up early to making Eliot coffee, to ensuring that he’d have some space to himself when he got home. He greeted Eliot when he came in the door, usually just with a quick kiss, and then went back to what he was doing.

Monday seemed almost normal. Except that was the day that Todd appeared and started flipping through Charlton’s sketchbook while Charlton was in the bathroom. When Charlton had come back downstairs, Todd pointed excitedly to a sketch. “You’ve been holding out on us!”

It, of course, would be one of the many little sketches of Eliot cooking in the kitchen, somewhere in the page of sketches that looked like he’d done nothing but draw Eliot’s ass for the entire page. In reality, he’d just been drawing what he saw, and with Eliot glued to the countertop preparing food, that had been a lot of his backside the day before.

Charlton had snapped the sketchbook away, glaring, but Todd had only grinned. “I’m serious, those are really good. Did you show Eliot?”

“That I accidentally drew a page of his ass?” Charlton snorted. “No.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant the rest of the sketches. Are they people you know?”

“People I _knew_ ,” Charlton said pointedly, hoping that Todd got the hint.

“Oh.” Todd’s expression turned serious and he nodded.

He didn’t ask any more questions, and started to walk away. Charlton felt bad, since Todd had shown some genuine enthusiasm about what Charlton had been drawing. “Hey, wait,” he called, opening up the sketchbook to a specific page. He stared down at it as Todd circled back.

“This one.” He set a finger on the corner of the drawing. A nostalgia flooded him and he smiled. He missed Andria. “This is my sister.”

Todd sat down next to Charlton and peered at the drawing. “She’s pretty. She’s… really pretty.”

“She was.” It pained Charlton a bit to say that. “I’d forgotten how she looked.” He still couldn’t remember everyone, not yet, but somehow Andria had been the first one to emerge from that dim corner of his mind where he’d hidden all of his memories for so long.

“Thank you,” Todd said suddenly.

Charlton looked sideways at him and closed the sketchbook. “For what?”

“For letting me see. I’m sorry I just started flipping through it.”

“I’d rather you not do that,” Charlton admitted. That had been annoying, but also very… what had Eliot called it? _On brand for Todd._ “There’s a lot of things I’m still trying to remember, and I’m not ready to share of it.”

“Yeah, I figured that out.” Todd sighed. “Okay. Well, go ahead and help yourself to the Coke. You may as well know it’s a bottomless box and maybe it’ll fuel your drawing.”

Charlton tried to contain his smug expression and couldn’t. “That’s… good to know.”

“Eliot already told you.” Todd pushed his lips together. “Some day I’ll get him back for that.”

And the week went on like that, almost the normal routine but not quite. Charlton couldn’t be sure if he imagined it or not, but there seemed to be a different cadence to Eliot’s steps, to the way that he moved through the cottage. He couldn’t quite all it a lightness, but an edge of energy that he hadn’t seen in Eliot in a while. He supposed that Eliot taking some time for himself was paying off.

On Monday night, Eliot looked wistfully at the alcohol when he got home, and instead opted for a cup of coffee. They went over their notes and started making a list of all of the books and topics they wanted to look for when they went to the Library. Eliot said he didn’t want to waste the opportunity, and Charlton didn’t blame him, especially considering what it would cost Eliot to get that opportunity.

For dinner they ate “masala dosas” and the name felt so strange that Charlton had to ask him to write it down so he could look it up. It involved spicy potatoes, and Charlton couldn’t eat enough of it. Eliot commented that it must be nice to eat everything but not gain weight. Charlton didn’t know if that were the case or not, it could just be that the way all of this transfiguration magic worked had the side effect of making him extremely hungry. Or, the amulet just kept him looking the same no matter what.

Throughout the week, they struggled with their own demons in their ways. Eliot started playing the piano, something that Charlton knew he didn’t do that often anymore. His playing early in the week sounded sad, perhaps anxious. It evolved through the week to fully anxious, to agitated as the end of the week approached.

Charlton supported him however he could, knowing that Saturday was going to be hard for Eliot. Sometimes he’d just walk past Eliot while he was grading assignments and brush a hand over the back of his neck, a small reminder that he was there. Half of the time, Eliot reached up and caught Charlton’s hand, holding it for a moment before letting go.

They settled into a routine. During the days, Charlton worked with Penny to hone his traveling skills. As a side effect of this, Charlton had to learn to calm his own mind, to push aside the intrusive random thoughts that always invaded. According to Penny, being a traveler was about more than just traveling: it came with psychic side effects that Charlton needed to be aware of. The potential to accidentally read someone’s thoughts was always there, and Charlton found that vaguely horrifying. He had enough of hearing thoughts or voices other than his own to last a lifetime, even one as long as he’d had. At the same time, he struggled with the silence.

He’d run this past Lipson during his checkup, about how it felt like something was always going on in his mind. She’d suggested that perhaps he was unconsciously trying to fill that space with thoughts because he didn’t know what silence actually felt like. It made some sense, and would also explain how he could sit on his phone for hours at a time looking up random things. He’d spent so much time with some other outside voice, memories, or even the horrors that existed outside of his own happy place. Always something, a sound, or waiting for a sound.

Lipson suggested meditation, so Charlton started picking that up from Penny. It took an immense amount of effort to clear his mind, but he found that it became easier to stay focused. When he’d been in Eliot’s mind in particular, he’d often had a problem to solve, something to keep him present and focused. If not, he’d have some beach memory to fall back on. This newfound existence, even though he’d had some time to get used to it in Hyman form, still felt foreign yet familiar.

He got better at traveling, and found that occasionally, now, he could pick up a stray thought. Penny claimed that was a good thing, but Charlton didn’t feel that way. He’d heard enough thoughts to last a lifetime. The meditation, however, helped him. Not just to uncover memories, but also to calm his mind to travel. He still couldn’t go past line of sight, but he managed to go all the way across the longest area he could find on the Brakebills campus.

He tried to remember more of his own life, the faces of the people he’d known. He hadn’t realized that tucking those memories away would make it so hard to retrieve them later. He wasn’t sure if he’d make the same decision or not if he’d known, but nothing could be done about that now. So, Charlton worked with what he had, a patchy memory and a string of remembrances that he hoped someday he could use to form a full picture of his life. He tried to use the lessons that Penny taught him to clear his mind before setting a pencil to paper.

On Thursday, the lessons started to pay off, as he felt like he went into a kind of trance while drawing. The world narrowed to the sound of a voice, a face, and the scratching of the pencil on the paper. It lasted a good hour, and he barely noticed the passage of time. When Eliot got home from work, Charlton looked up. “I’m almost finished.” He paused, looking from the drawing to Eliot. “It’s okay if you see it.”

Eliot took a seat across from Charlton at the table, and sat quietly while Charlton finished. Something filled Charlton as he drew, a longing for the life he’d lost. A face he knew he’d never see again except in his memories, but one that he wanted to still have life, to him. She was alive so long as she was still with him, and so he wouldn’t let go.

Before he realized it was happening, a tear rolled down his face and splashed onto a spot near the bottom of the page. He wiped his eyes and pushed the sketchbook away, staring at it to take in the sight of what he’d drawn.

Eliot moved to sit next to him, putting his hand over Charlton’s. “Who is she?” he asked, his fingers brushing over Charlton’s.

“My mother,” he said simply, unable to take his eyes off of the drawing. The details he’d remembered before were hazy, but now they were captured in the drawing. The patterned scarf she wore over her hair, the freckles along her cheekbones, the mark on her temple. The kindness of her eyes.

Eliot squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you’re remembering.”

Charlton lifted his head to look at Eliot, studying his face. That one stubborn curl that usually escaped by the end of the day. The mix of concern blurred together with his own strain of what he knew was coming. “Memories are a blessing and a curse.”

“Oh don’t I know it.” Eliot sighed.

Charlton didn’t know if it would help, but he pushed the sketchbook towards Eliot. “I’m going to go heat up dinner.” In truth, he needed to do something that wasn’t facing his memories, just a moment. “You can look through this, if you want.”

“I would love to.” Eliot pulled the sketchbook towards him, flipping it to the first page, and Charlton headed into the kitchen.

It would be far easier if he wasn’t watching Eliot look through the drawings, if he wasn’t remembering right now, but he wanted to share it all with Eliot. He wanted Eliot to see that the gift he had given Charlton had been perfect, that it mattered.

He reheated some pasta that Eliot had made and brought it back to the table, putting it down near Eliot. “I know it’s a lot of drawings.”

“Charlton, these are fantastic. You know that, right?”

“Yes. I appear to be above average at this.” He smiled. “The sketchbook and pencils have helped a lot.”

“Well, then it appears I’m good for something other than cooking,” Eliot declared.

They agreed that Charlton would tell him all about who they all were after dinner, and Eliot teased Charlton, asking him how much pencil he’d wasted drawing Eliot’s backside in the kitchen. Charlton didn’t grace it with a response, but he was sure it was a lot. He’d drawn a few pages of quick sketches of Eliot in the kitchen. After dinner they sat on the couch, flipping through the sketchbook.

Charlton hadn’t spent much time looking through the past drawings until now, and he held the sketchbook in his lap. On the cover, he’d written his name and a single word: Remembrances. Both the past and the present, contained in one partially filled sketchbook.

He flipped through the initial drawings of objects, to the drawings of Eliot. Indistinct in places, hastily drawn while Eliot was in motion. Through to more detailed drawings, more of Eliot, because his memories of Eliot were so vivid, so present in his mind that they were easy to draw off of.

He thought he’d be embarrassed to show Eliot, but Eliot’s face looked so open and fascinated that he felt reassured by it. 

“Your hair is hard to draw,” Charlton commented, noticing every imperfection and issue in his own drawings.

“Don’t even start.” Eliot looked from the sketchbook to Charlton’s face. “It helps me, too. To see that I’m still here. These feel like they’re me.” He reached over and gently flipped ahead a few pages to a picture of Eliot smiling. “I feel like you see me differently than I see myself.”

“Perhaps. But I think that’s true for everyone, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is.” Eliot reached out and touched the page with the smile “It feels good to know that I still can smile.”

Eliot flipped through the rest of the sketchbook, through the pages of sketches of people Charlton knew, had known. Kady bent over in deep study of a spell, or doing the motions of a spell. Julia, looking over her shoulder. Penny with Hope. Even Plum, from a day she’d visited to check in on Charlton and see how he was adjusting to life at Brakebills.

Conversations like that were sometimes the hardest of all. A part of him wanted to say that he wasn’t adjusting, not at all. Enrolling at Brakebills had been something he’d done because he’d needed something to do, some way to recapture the magic he felt like he’d otherwise lost. But he had no idea if he’d manage to fit in with the school, with it’s more rigid concepts of magic, with it’s classes and it’s structure. Magic in Fillory was something that he’d always felt, they all had, woven into the fabric of their existence like golden threads. He’d never had to question it, or had to understand where it came from, or the theory of it.

The concept of the theory of magic was actually fascinating to Charlton. He wanted to know the theory, he wanted to know the reasoning. What he found himself less excited by was the classes, the needing to sit still. He understood on a practical level why it was so structured, given that students came from such broad backgrounds and would not have the same level of inherent knowledge as he did.

The thought of having to learn magic here, rather than where he came from, felt intimidating, and he still struggled with the appeal of it. He’d watched people out in the Sea that struggled to practice their magic, Eliot had said they were second year students. They were learning, but it was a learning that came with a certain level of deprogramming. Many of these students lived a life where they’d had no idea that magic existed, that they had that potential.

It was nothing like Fillory, and while Charlton felt grateful because he knew nowhere was like Fillory, it also made him homesick and wish for his home.


	27. Making A fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot contemplates a snake eating its own tail.

The week passed by in a blur, a blur of work, food, of studying the notes for finding Fillory, and spending more time with Charlton. Just the right amount of time, as it turned out; Eliot wasn’t used to having someone always around, but Charlton seemed aware of that and gave him space accordingly. Some nights, Charlton just drifted through and refilled Eliot’s coffee, or perhaps he’d be tucked away in a corner with the sketchbook.

It made Eliot feel good to see Charlton jump into drawing as much as he had. His biggest concern for Charlton is that he didn’t know what he wanted to do, not really, and with the way Eliot had felt for so long, he wasn’t always the best help for that. He still struggled with himself, but rediscovering his love of cooking and playing the piano had helped.

He channeled his frustrations into the musical aspects of his evenings, pouring out the feelings that he had no names for out into a series of sounds that filled the cottage. He knew that his playing felt inconsistent, emotional, even discordant at times, and he didn’t care. He walked through every day holding back his feelings, shoving them down, letting them eat at him. Bite after bite, as if the pieces of him that were missing would consume what was left.

_Like a snake eating its own tail._

Knowing that he’d be facing down so many of his memories of Q in a matter of days terrified him. There would be no keeping a mask on, no hiding how he felt. It would break free, no matter how hard he wanted to hold his head up and not let it happen. He wanted to be like Margo, able to compartmentalize. Every time he’d tried, he’d ended up making everything worse. His approach wouldn’t be hers, and he had to find that balance himself.

He found the mask slipping more and more, and he still struggled to be comfortable with that. He felt like he smiled more, and that the smiles were genuine.

“I think I’m feeling less like a lost king and more like something resembling myself,” he murmured to Charlton one night while they were curled up in bed.

“You’ve always been yourself.” Charlton continued stroking his neck with his fingers. “But if it helps, you also feel like you to me.”

He relaxed into Charlton’s touch, basking in his presence. This felt so fresh, so new, and he knew it couldn’t last like this. Nothing stayed this real forever.

By Thursday the strain was getting to him, the quirks of some of his less attentive students starting to nag at him. He might have snapped.

Who was Eliot kidding? Of course he snapped. 

“It’s time we had a conversation,” he told them. “And I have the power to flunk you entirely for ignoring this lesson, so I expect you to break your routines of fucking around and instead pay attention. If you want to fuck around after this, it’s your choice, and your responsibility.”

Some of his students smirked, perhaps gloating that they finally got to him. He gritted his teeth. “How many of you used magic before you came here? Not just realizing you were different, but seeing it for yourselves?”

Only four students raised their hands, one of them one of his trouble students. Rafael. Eliot went on to ask them what they’d done with their magic, and the answers were the same standard ones that he’d heard over and over for kids that would likely end up in Physical magic. One got mad and threw a mug against a wall. One figured out how to cool their drinks faster. One came from a magician family, with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth. They didn’t seem that they’d ever been traumatized by magic.

Rafael had the most surprising answer, one that Eliot hadn’t expected. “I started a fire,” he declared.

“And what happened?” Eliot asked.

Rafael shrugged, his expression neutral.

“Fine, then.” Eliot drew a breath. “The moment I discovered magic for the first time, I killed someone.”

The room went silent. As he suspected, he supposed; what do a group of students say when they’re faced with that information from their professor? For a moment, Eliot wondered if he’d made a grave mistake, and started to imagine the conversation with Henry later. No doubt, he didn’t want to be a part of that, but he’d come too far.

There would be no going back, so Eliot straightened his jacket and continued, pushing aside the feeling in his gut. “I had no idea that it would happen. I was so mad, and I wished someone dead. I wished it so hard that it throbbed in my head, and I had no concept of what that meant, or what it would be like to live with that. I’d thought it before, and nothing had happened.” He cleared his throat, looking down at the floor. “I wasn’t prepared for what happened, or for how it would change me.”

He drew a deep breath. “Magic is a responsibility. You didn’t work for the potential you have, you either have it or you don’t. It doesn’t go to the worthy, or the good, or the smart. Which is why we train you to be all of the above, to the best of our ability.” He lifted his head and looked around the room. “When you think about checking out during class, skipping class, or not taking magic seriously, I want you to think really hard about the consequences. Magic chooses you, but you also have to choose magic. You have to choose who you want to be.” He focused on their faces, now all focused on him, except for a few students who looked down at their desks and fidgeted with their pens.

“I’ve seen more than I hope any of you will have to see in your lives. That’s changed me, as what you see will change you. You’ll have hard decisions where you’ll have to decide what magic will be for you, what path it will lead you down. No one can make those choices for you, least of all me.” He leaned against a table, using it to steady himself. He certainly hoped no one in this room would ever see what he’d seen, go through what he went through. “Every day, I choose magic. I choose what I do with it. I don’t always get it right, and you certainly won’t always get it right. But you need to be aware of your own intent when you move through the world as a magician. You are not everyone else – you have a responsibility to yourself and to others. If you succeed here at Brakebills, you will be forever changed. If that’s not for you, no one is holding you here, but you lose magic. You can’t choose who you were, but you can choose who you become.”

Eliot flicked his eyes past the clock on the wall and frowned. Class was almost over. “I’d like you all to think about this. If you don’t think this is for you, no one will judge you. We’ll help you adjust to going back to a different life. But if you choose magic, if you choose the life that Brakebills offers, it will change everything. If you’re ready for that, be here tomorrow ready to pay attention. You’re dismissed early.” He waved a hand at them, turning away. Their shocked expressions had become too much, too hard to read.

Typical Eliot, even with years of experience behind him, still too dramatic. He rubbed at his forehead, listening as the students got up out of their desks and filed quietly from the room. He pushed his hands into his pockets and waited for them to leave.

“Professor Waugh?” Rafael queried from behind him, his voice wavering.

Eliot turned to look at him. “Yes, Rafael?”

“The fire.” He looked down and to the side. “My twin sister got burned. The doctors said she might be in pain the rest of her life.”

Eliot processed that, watching Rafael’s face. “You already know how serious this is, and yet you’re here fucking around through almost every class. Why?”

Rafael tugged at the straps on his backpack. “Because I’ll always be the boy that burned his sister.”

Unexpected, but Eliot didn’t feel surprised. Some of the hardest ones were the ones that carried the most trauma. Something he knew all too well. “It’s up to you now if you want to be more,” Eliot pointed out. “That’s who you are now, but is that all you want to be for the rest of your life?”

Rafael shook his head. “No. I… I’d hoped maybe I would end up also being a healer so that I could help her. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Maybe not. But by being here, at Brakebills, you’ve opened yourself up to a whole world of magic, of people who can do magic, and people who can help. And I’m going to give you a bit of advice that is critical.” He looked down at Rafael. “You’re not alone. You don’t have to be alone here. You’re not the first one to fuck up with your magic, and you won’t be the last. Do something you’re proud of.”

To Eliot’s almost horror, a tear formed up in the corner of Rafael’s eye. Eliot didn’t sign up for crying students, although he supposed it was an inevitability. He’d just expected more tears of frustration and less of… this.

Rafael nodded. “That’s what I want to do. I want to make it right.”

“Thank you for trusting me with this.” Eliot folded his hands in front of him. “And thanks for not saying it’s cool that I killed someone.”

“Has someone actually said that?”

“Thankfully, no.” Eliot pushed his lips together. Logan had been the first, but not the last. He remembered Mike and something in him seized up for a moment. He sucked in a breath. “And I hope that they never do.”

“What if there’s never anything good I can do with my magic?” Rafael asked.

“There’s always something good. You just have to find it.” Eliot nodded. “Collect yourself if you need to, I’ll be here for a few more minutes.”

Rafael wiped at the corners of his eyes. “I think I’ll do that. The last thing I need is anyone else seeing me like this.”

“I won’t tell. I’m good at secrets.” Perhaps, Eliot was a bit too good. The stories he could have told these kids would have scared them into paying rapt attention in every class for the rest of their time at Brakebills. But some of those stories, they’d never be ready for. Some of those stories would scare them away from magic forever. Hearing the good or the bad of magic was almost never enough to truly keep someone at it, they needed to find that for themselves. They couldn’t do that if they didn’t try, if they didn’t have a true taste of magic.

At least, that’s how it had been for Eliot, and for many of the others that he’d known over the years. Alice, Quentin, Penny, Julia, Kady, Josh, Plum. Even Margo, although Margo had always carried something with her that transcended the bounds of magic. Margo was a force regardless of her magic, but her magic was an insight into that. Her magic wasn’t unstoppable because it was strong on its own. It was strong because Margo was strong, she made it strong.

Eliot gathered up his briefcase while Rafael gathered his wits, and then left the classroom with a mumbled “thank you.” Eliot gave him some time to clear the room before he followed, heading back to the Physical Kids’ Cottage.

One of these days, he’d have to move out of the cottage, and into the professor’s housing. Perhaps that time was finally coming. As much as living in the cottage and pretending some days that nothing had changed was reassuring, it was false. Everything had changed. He had changed.

He wasn’t sure how that would impact this budding relationship with Charlton, however. The cottage was a neutral ground, a closed ecosystem. No one would ask questions there, it was just the three of them. And Hyman, but it didn’t seem like he had any interest in giving away their secrets. Knowing Hyman, he probably felt special for knowing this one thing that no one else did.

If Eliot moved into the professor’s quarters, Charlton would likely end up housed elsewhere. The most like possibility was the psychic’s house with other travelers, but it didn’t feel like the right place for Charlton, either.

Perhaps Eliot hadn’t taken the time to think about how hard this adjustment could be for Charlton, under the circumstances. In fact, it could be very difficult for him to adjust to full time Brakebills life, even with the support he had in Penny, Eliot, Plum, and others. But traveling was just one part of any traveler; Hyman, for instance, had ended up in the Physical Kids’ Cottage, after all. No doubt because he didn’t really fit in with the psychics, either. And Penny had only barely fit in there, himself. Either one of the Pennys, for that matter.

Back home in the cottage, after a fascinating look through Charlton’s sketchbook and his memories, Eliot sat with his class roster in front of him, thinking through the demonstrated skills of each student, and how he might best help reach them. A one size fit all approach hadn’t worked, but today had gotten through to at least one student, that he’d known of. He couldn’t get in the habit of throwing out his life’s story every time a student struggled, but there could be spaces to relate to them, to engage them, on a different level. What were the things he’d wished that professors had told him when he was a student? And what would he have believed?

A professor easily could have told him, “you will make early mistakes with your magic before you even know you have it, and it’s not your fault.” But he wouldn’t have believed that, coming from someone else. He’d still had the thought, he had still wanted Logan dead for the brief moment that it took for him to make the fantasy a grisly reality that he could never take back.

No one said it was going to be easy. But often, anything worth doing was never easy. 

With that thought on his mind, he decided he needed a break, and took himself to the piano to take out his frustrations on the melodies that drifted through his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as fillorian-candy and on twitter as oceancandy_ !


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